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Commentary upon the Maya-Tzental 

Perez Codex 



With a Concluding Note upon the 
Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs 



BY 

William E. Gates 

Professor in School of Antiquity, International Theosophical 
Headquarters, Point Loma, California 



Point Loma, California 
1910 



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Copyrighted, 1910, by William E. Gates 




Thb Aryan Theosophical Press 
Point Loma, California 



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NOTE 



■ The following paper was written for separate publication, 
with the view of summarizing some of the data afforded by 
the problems connected with the Maya glyphs, and also bearing 
upon the evolution of language-forms in their relation to hu- 
man history; it has however, upon the suggestion of Professor 
F. W. Putnam, been issued as one of the Papers of the Peabody 
Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard 
University. 

The data themselves are the accumulation of the past 
twelve years, since the writer's interest was, after various other 
fields of linguistic study, finally drawn to and fixed upon the 
languages of the great pre-Columbian American civilizations. 
Subsequent researches, begun a few years ago, have led to the 
belief that almost equal, parallel results will in the future be 
found to lie within the great Central Asian district, behind 
what we know as Chinese ; but to the writer the greatest door 
to the past is still that of the Maya glyphs. 

The trend of Science for the past thirty years, after taking 
its rise then at the very climax (so thought) of materialism, 
has now in these last two or three years, especially, become 
more manifest. A parallel movement is now apparent in nearly 
every field, each body of scientists working in their own lines, 
yet all seeming as if led towards recognition of a greater past, 
and of worthier views. One need only mention the work of 
Professor Soddy, Professor See, Professor Munsterberg — 
among many others. 

In this progress of Science the writer believes Linguistics, 
in the wider sense, to be of paramount importance, and that 
the philosophy of language is inseparable from Archaeology. 



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A r '- 
PEREZ CODEX: PAGE 6 




PEREZ CODEX: PAGE 17 



THE PEREZ CODEX 



ThB Perez Codex was discovered just fifty years ago by 
Prof. Leon de Rosny, while searching through the Bibliotheque 
Imperiale, Paris, in the hope of bringing to light some docu- 
ments of interest for the then newly awakened study of Pre- 
Columbian America. It was found by him in a basket among 
a lot of old papers, black with dust and practically abandoned 
in a chimney corner. From a few words with the name 
Perez, written on a torn scrap of paper then around it but 
since lost, it received its name. 

Being restored to its proper place in the Library, it was in 
1864 photographed by order of M. Victor Duruy, Minister of 
Instruction, and a few copies issued without further explan- 
atory notes than the printed wrappers. The number of copies 
is stated by Prof, de Rosny to have been very small; in 
Leclerc's Bibl. Amer. (1878, No. 2290) it is given as only 10, 
and in Brasseur's Bibl. Mex.-Guat. (page 95), as 50. A copy 
is in the library of the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington, 
and referred to in their publications as a most fortunate ac- 
quisition. I had the good fortune to secure a copy some ten 
years ago, and one other has recently appeared in a Leipzig 
catalog at a high price. Beyond these I have not traced any 
other copy. 

In 1872 Prof, de Rosny published a reproduction, drawn 
by hand, which, as stated by him later, may be disregarded for 
practical purposes.* 

* In Archives paleographiques de VOrient et de I'Amerique, atlas, t. I, 
pi. 117-142. 



8 COMMENTARY ON TH^ PERKZ CODEX 

In 1887 he issued a facsimile edition in colors, 85 copies, 
which up to the present time has remained the only attempt to 
show the Codex in its proper colors, and has become exceed- 
ingly difficult to procure; so much so that it was only after 
seven years search that I was able to secure my own copy.* 

In 1888 he reissued the Codex, uncolored, with the same 
letter-press, and in an edition of 100 copies. This has also 
become scarce. 

Each of these three editions has its advantages and disad- 
vantages. The colored edition of 1887, having been worked 
over by hand, in lithography, is defective in various places, 
both as regards the black of the figures and glyphs, and in the 
colors. Coloring exists on the original codex which was not 
reproduced at all in the edition, and the colors given are in 
many cases not exact. Thus on pages 19 and 20 two different 
reds are used for the backgrounds, whereas but one is found 
in the original; on pages 15, 16 the figures are a turquoise 
green, and on pages 17, 18 an olive green, the correct color 
for all four being turquoise green. 

I have been able to find no inaccuracy in the 1888 edition, 
which is indeed stated in the introduction to be entirely by 
mechanical process, without hand intervention; but being re- 
produced by printer's ink in black only, not only do the colors 
not appear, but the chromatic values are actually far inferior 
to the photographs of 1864. It was stated further by Prof, 
de Rosny that some features of the MS. had been lost by 
deterioration in the 25 years previous to his editions of 1887 
and 1888, but this I have not been able to verify in any im- 
portant point. 

The photographs and the edition of 1888 are to all general 
purposes identical; but, notwithstanding that the photographs 
are steadily yellowing by age, the chromatic values are so far 
superior that I have continually come to find them the court of 
final decision in doubtful matters. In a very considerable 
number of instances a close examination of the photographs 

* In his Commentar zur Pdriser Mayahandschrift, Danzig, 1903, Dr. 
Forstemann does not know of the existence of this edition. 



comm]e;ntary on rut perEz codex y 

has suggested the presence of faint Hnes of color on glyphs or 
figures, which was entirely indistinguishable in both of the 
printed editions, and which was yet in every case confirmed, 
although sometimes with difficulty, by the examination of the 
original MS. 

The proved value, as well as the scarcity, of these photo- 
graphs was so great, that in 1905 I had my set photographed 
twice, by dry and wet plate processes, and a few copies printed 
after a careful comparison and selection of the two sets of 
plates. It is from these that the present edition has grown.* 

The present edition, save for the photographs thus repro- 
duced, having been entirely redrawn, and partly restored, it is 
fitting to detail just what has been done in this respect. 

At the very beginning of my introduction to Maya studies 
the enormous burdens placed on research therein at every 
turn, bore upon me as upon every other student. The subject 
and its possibilities stimulate enthusiasm to the highest degree ; 
the rewards of success are greater than those of any like prob- 
lem today; and yet, fifty years since the present Codex was 
discovered, and thirty years since Dr. Forstemann's unsurpass- 
able edition of the Dresden Codex, the actual workers on the 
problem are the barest handful. A few scattered and obscure 
references amongst the volumes on volumes of Spanish writ- 
ers, nearly all untranslated, most of them scarce or almost un- 
procurable, and many not even printed, make up the literature 
to be searched out. And a few points of decipherment won 
and safely fixed by the researchers, from Brasseur, de Rosny, 
Pousse, Brinton and others a generation ago, to Messrs. Bow- 
ditch, Seler, Goodman and a few others of today, are all we 
have — standing out in a wilderness of guesses by many wri- 
ters, needless of naming. 

* Codex Perez: Maya-Tzental. Redrawn and Slightly Restored, and 
with the Coloring as it originally stood, so far as possible, given on the 
basis of a new and minute examination of the Codex itself. Mounted 
in the form of the Original. Accompanied by a Reproduction of the 
1864 Photographs ; also by the entire Text of the Glyphs, unemended 
but with some restorations. Printed from Type, and arranged in Par- 
allel Columns for convenience of study and comparison. Drawn and 
edited by William E. Gates. {Privately printed.) Point Loma, 1909. 



10 COMMENTARY ON TH^ PEREZ COD^X 

Of course the prime and absolute necessity of such a study 
is true facsimiles; but the task of using even these, taken as 
they must be from much defaced inscriptions and manuscripts, 
is too obvious for comment. So from the very first of my 
studies I began to cherish thoughts of the day when Maya 
could be printed with type, and classified indexes to the glyphs 
at hand. From one point of view such facilities can only be 
expected to come after decipherment; from another, in ab- 
sence of bilingual keys, they are a necessity before that can be 
attained. So far as his work covers, a great deal has been 
done in this line by Mr, A. P. Maudslay in the field of the 
inscriptions. 

At the very outset therefore I must enter acknowledgment 
of the assistance that I owe to the courtesy at that time of 
Prof. F. W. Putnam, of Peabody Museum, and Mr. Chas. P. 
Bowditch, in placing, with a freedom by no means universal 
among curators and researchers, their material at my disposal, 
with privilege of copying. I am safe to say that while I have 
reclassified the glyphs for my own use as my studies went on, 
yet without the copy which by Mr. Bowditch's courtesy I was 
allowed to make of his card index to the glyphs of the three 
codices, as a start, this edition of the Perez Codex would not 
yet have reached daylight through the many other occupations 
among which Maya studies have had to take their chances. 

At first it seemed possible to prepare a font of separate 
types for the various elements of the compound glyphs we find 
in the texts; but after having such a font made a number of 
years ago, and printing a couple of pages of the Dresden Co- 
dex, the result was unsatisfactory; it became evident that the 
proper Maya font of type must be both separate and com- 
posite, as is used in Chinese, and not separate only as we have 
for Egyptian. The type for the text cards of this edition have 
therefore been made this way. 

As to the colored plates of the Codex herewith, it is evident 
that nothing whatever is gained by preserving the irregular- 
ities of the defaced parts of the Codex, while everything is to 
be gained by making all as clear and distinct as possible. The 



COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 11 

first Step therefore was to have a set of photographed enlarge- 
ments of two diameters, made direct from the 1864 issue. 
From these I made careful tracings, myself, of the black figure 
and glyph lines of the original, making at the same time the 
separate enlarged drawings from which the type were after- 
wards made. At this first drawing only the evident, the indis- 
putable parts were drawn. The type forms were then classi- 
fied, arranged in parallel columns, and compared. All was 
then gone over, and new points settled on the basis of the fam- 
iliarity thus gained. It is a fair estimate to say that this pro- 
cess of checking and verifying was gone through, first to last, 
down to the final proof-reading of the printed sheets, some 
fifty times. 

One most important fact was established by this process, 
and must be noted. In the Perez Codex at least, nothing is to 
be taken for granted, nothing charged to a careless scribe, and 
no variants regarded as being identical in value — with a very 
few exceptions, to which I shall advert later. Wherever there 
remains enough of any glyph to show its characteristic strokes, 
it can be regarded as safely indicated; whenever the strokes 
are not just those characteristic of any glyph, it cannot be in- 
ferred. Down to the very end of the various revisions I found 
myself able to add glyphs which at first seemed hopeless, and 
yet when once seen became clear and plain. Relying on the 
presence of the photographs to check the work, I have thus 
added a very considerable number to the glyphs at first appar- 
ent. In some cases, as in 6-b-ll and 17, and especially in 
8-b-7, 8, 10, where glyphs were only partially erased, but no 
other instances of perfect glyphs existed to compare them with, 
I have let them alone, without attempting restoration. In 
short, I may have made some errors of eye, but I have guessed 
nothing. 

In a very few places I have restored glyphs totally erased, 
relying on the parallelism of the passages. Such are some of 
the Ahau-numbers in the upper sections of pages 2 to 11, and 
in the central sections on those pages, the initial pairs of glyphs 
on pages 15 to 18-a, b, c, the first columns of pages 19 and 20, 




12 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

and a few day-signs on pages 21, 23 and 24. These glyphs are 
all necessitated by their different series, and hence can cause 
no confusions ; while it seemed advantageous to have them be- 
fore the eye, A fair instance of the procedure is shown on 
page 3-b-l, 3. The temptation was strong to put the usual 
glyph here as on all the other pages, but the slight 
variation in the lines left of glyph 3-b-3 forbade it. 
The restoration will further be found a little bolder on the 
type-cards than in the colored plates, where I have in general 
only endeavored to reproduce what could be seen actually pre- 
sent. The glyphs restored on the upper part of page 7 would 
seem hopeless at first sight ; but they are well-known and com- 
mon forms, and the characteristic traces shown on the photo- 
graphs belong to these and to no others known. 

The cards of type-printed text, in parallel columns for con- 
venience of study, are self-explanatory. Such an arrangement 
has from the first seemed to me indispensable for proper study 
and comparison. The paging of the de Rosny editions I have 
retained, except to change the practically blank page 1 to be 
page 25, since to number this as 1 is confusing. For the divis- 
ions and the numbering of the glyphs I have made my own ar- 
rangement. It is possible that section h on pages 2 to 11 
should only go to the bottom line of the central figure, leaving 
section d to read clear across the page, and another section to 
be made to the left of the nearly erased figures at the bottom ; 
but the chances as shown by the lining and arrangement of the 
columns seemed to favor it as I have given it. Only final 
decipherment can decide definitely. 



COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 13 

THE COLORS 

The colors of the Codex afforded a number of questions 
for solution, some of which I have cleared up and embodied 
in the plates ; a few are I believe insoluble. I have also been 
able to add a few wholly new points, not indicated by any of 
the preceding editions. 

Being unable to make a personal examination of the orig- 
inal, I prepared from my enlarged black drawings, above men- 
tioned, another full set including the figures and all glyphs or 
other parts showing any suggestions of color. Upon these I 
prepared a list of nearly 200 questions covering every detail, 
together with certain general specifications, and had the whole 
made the subject of a careful and exhaustive comparison with 
the original at the BibliotHeque Nationale. This report, when 
duly returned with the various details set out, with the var- 
ious colors shown in their exact tints by water-colors, and with 
a special analysis of the question of the fading of the colors, 
was again checked and verified by the evidence of the three 
editions. 

In doubtful questions arising from faded colors, I have 
sought to show the condition of the original as it exists today. 
In the solid red backgrounds and other places I have aimed to 
show as far as possible what the Codex looked like when fresh. 

This question as to what all the colors in detail were when 
fresh, I do not feel that I have quite solved. The following 
palette scheme seems to me about as near as the data permit 
us to formulate. 

A permanent black, being the parts reproduced in black in 
the present edition. 

A brick-red, tinged with crimson, used for backgrounds, 
red numerals, and probably elsewhere. This we may call un- 
fading red. 

A genuine brown, as on the animals, pages 5-a, 8-a; per- 
haps also elsewhere as lining ornament. 

A pale pink as flesh color on the human figures. 



14 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ COD^X 

A blue, as on the possible katun number series on pages 
23 and 24. 

A turquoise-green, with varying amounts of blue tinge, on 
the spotted figures and in the numeral columns of pages 15 
to 18; also, with somewhat less of the blue, for the "water" 
bands on pages 21 to 24. 

The above colors are all definite and positive. 

Then next appears a brownish color used for lining or 
ornamenting various glyphs, and the clothing, headdress, etc., 
etc., of the figures. We find many shades from a pale neutral 
up to a darker clear brown, and also a definitely reddish, as on 
the tail of the bird on the right side of page 23. This brown 
may be a fading of the red of the backgrounds and numerals, 
but the permanence of the color in these latter places is so 
positive that I believe it is not so. I think it should be re- 
garded as separate. 

We next come to a color question related directly to de- 
cipherment, that of the very difficult numeral columns on pages 

15 to 18. There is no practical reason discernable for the use 
of alternating colors save the avoidance of confusion between 
bar combinations. Three bars together of dififerent colors stand 
of course for three 5's ; of one color they would make a single 
number 15. We therefore find here our above black, red and 
blue-green alternating and clearly marked in places ; but we 
also find many numerals of varying shades of brownish, bistre 
and grayish. I called for especial care in the examination of 
these points on the original Codex, and the water-color sheets 
and explanatory notes show in detail the facts of the present 
state of the Codex. Prior to the examination I supposed that 
these faded numerals were a faded red, but this is stated in 
the report to be certainly not the case ; the suggestion is made 
that they are probably faded blacks. 

From the latter conclusion I am inclined in part to dissent, 
at least as to certain passages, for two reasons. These are, 
first the actual permanence of the above noted main colors, 
everywhere else; and second, passages in the second columns 
of pages 16 and 17. In each of these we find faded brown or 



COMMENTARY ON TH^ P^REZ CODEX 15 

gray bars, so placed between or next to plain black bars as 
would give, were they faded blacks, more than three black 
bars together. 

Another point on page 17 is to be noted. In the top section, 
first column, are five blue 3's. Some of these blue dots, as 
shown in the 1887 edition and in my water-colors, have faded 
to the same light brown seen elsewhere. The brown and the 
blue 5 in the second column of this page, middle division, as 
just mentioned, have also an identical chromatic value in the 
photographs. 

My whole conclusion therefore, so far as I can formulate 
one, is that in these columns we have : 

Red, black, and blue-green numerals, as shown. Some of 
the blue numerals seem to have been outlined with black, of 
which traces still appear on the original, are seen in the photo- 
graphs, and indicated in the present color plates. 

Several instances where the Codex has been rubbed so as 
to leave only the outlines of original black numerals. These 
are now gray in the original, and I have left them as black 
outlines, touched in with gray. 

Finally, a number of pale brown numerals which are either 
faded blue-greens, or else indicate a fourth color in the orig- 
inal. Which of these alternatives is the true one, I cannot say. 

The original Codex is still in practically as good condition 
as when the three editions were taken from it. The material 
of which it is made is a maguey paper of grayish tinge, and 
not a yellowish brown as would be inferred from the 1887 
edition. This is noteworthy, as the wearing away of the coat- 
ing with which the paper was surfaced for the writing, does 
not leave a brownish place which, as in the 1887 edition, might 
be mistaken for traces of applied color. This coating is indeed 
better preserved in places than is shown by the 1887 edition; 
thus the headdress at the extreme left of page 20, just to the 
right of the restored 8 Ezanab on the present color plates, is 
shown with the coating all erased and the black writing as if 
left on the ground-paper — which is incorrect. 



16 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 



THE PAGES IN DETAIL 

Coming then to the question of the subject-matter of the 
Codex, I feel that little is in order beyond a simple analytical 
description of the different pages, rather than any attempt at 
an interpretation. The road of general deductions from super- 
ficial resemblances between unknown elements and the details 
of other known things from other times and places, is strewn 
by the wrecks of too many theories to be attractive traveling. 
I am firmly convinced of the greatness and importance of the 
study we have before us, and the exalted civilization which 
produced it; but I do not know how to interpret these monu- 
ments. Indeed the very persistence with which the interpre- 
tation (which will certainly be self-evident and everywhere 
applicable when it does finally come) still eludes us, is a suf- 
ficient proof that we have not yet found the right road. When 
we do, great doorways to the past of mankind will open of 
themselves, and we will know more of human life and evolu- 
tion than we now guess. Until then we can only describe, 
classify, and try to get rid of some of the mechanical impedi- 
menta of the search. 

What we have of the Perez Codex is manifestly but a frag- 
ment; the extent of it originally we have no means of even 
guessing. It is fortunate however that what we have gives 
several practically complete chapters or portions of the work. 
Taking first the side of the MS. paged 2 to 12, we find the en- 
tire side covered by a series of pictures with text, all identical 
in arrangement. The few remaining traces on page 12 show 
its likeness to the others, for we see in their proper places parts 
of the Tun-glyph on which the figures on the upper section are 
seated; of the Cimi, Tun and Cauac glyphs just as in pages 
ll-c-2, 6 and 8; also of the columns of glyphs to the left, and 
traces of the headdress. As will appear further, at least two 
more pages are required to complete this series, and it is as 
good a supposition as any other that they were those which 
would be numbered 1 and 13 — that is, one before page 2 and 



COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 17 

one after page 12. For convenience of reference the divisions 
of these pages may be lettered from a to e; a being given to 
the upper portion, b to the left columns of glyphs, e to the 
large middle picture, and c and d to the text divisions above 
and below this. 

Taking up first the central figures, section e, we find in 
each a standing figure, with ceremonial headdress of varying 
character, offering a dragon's head (a universal symbol of 
wisdom) to another figure, seated on a cushioned dais, the 
side of which bears various " constellation " signs. The latter 
in turn extends his hands, either holding some object, or else 
in a simple gesture. The standing figures are all almost com- 
pletely preserved; the seated ones unfortunately largely or 
wholly obliterated. In front of the standing ministrant is a 
vase of offerings, usually a triple Kan figure, and in two cases 
with knives. In the upper part of the picture, facing in every 
case but one towards the ministrant, is a bird figure, different 
on each page, and having in two cases a human head. On each 
page is an Ahau sign with red numeral, all of them together 
forming a series which (starting on the supposed page 1 with 
4 Ahau) gives the succession 4, 2, 13, 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1, 12, 10, 
8, 6; in other words the numbers of thirteen consecutive 
katuns. The Ahau numerals 13, 11, 9, on pages 3, 4 and 5, 
are entirely distinct, and enough traces appear on other pages 
to establish this as a katun series beyond question. If this 
chapter includes just a round of numbers it would of course 
be complete in 13 pages. The chapter may be historical in 
contents, but the presence of this numeral Ahau-series clearly 
relates these pages to successive katuns in some way, whatever 
other bearings they may have. The ten pages thus in some 
way definitely have to do with the lapse of 72,000 days, or not 
quite 200 solar years, and the extension of the series to a full 
cycle of 20 katuns is quite likely. The background of this 
section e is red on each alternate page. 

Returning now to section a, we find on each page three 
figures, nearly all of persons or animals, seated on a large base 



18 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 



practically identical with the tun-glyph. Fourteen of 
the backgrounds to these figures are red. Above each 
figure there seems to have been at least six glyphs, of which 
but very few are left. Above these is a space entirely erased. 
In the center of the section on each page is a column contain- 
ing at least two Ahaus with red numerals. The numerals of 
the upper row exceed those of the lower by 6; each row de- 
creases from page to page by 4. The erased margins of the 
MS. do not afford space for another picture besides the three, 
on either side, but they do just give room for another Ahau- 
column on the left of each page. If this second Ahau-column 
existed, we have again the katun-series repeated in each row 
across. If it did not exist, the series (reading from the sup- 
posed page 1) of 13, 9, 5, etc., and 7, 3, 12, etc., decreasing by 
4's, give the numbers of successive tuns. Once again the ques- 
tion of whether a simple number-round of thirteen terms, or 
a full round of twenty terms, whether tuns or katuns, was 
originally displayed on the Codex, must be left undetermined. 
It is further to be noted that faint but exact traces of a third 
Ahau, on a higher line, appear on page 5, as well as some 
doubtful traces on page 8. No definite relationship between 
the pictures of this section a and those of section e is apparent. 
Section b is made up of 45 or more glyphs in three col- 
umns. The first column is almost totally erased on every page, 
and I have disregarded it both in assigning reference numbers 
and in the type cards. The other two columns I have num- 
bered in double column sequence downwards ; but this can be 
regarded as solely for convenience' sake. The glyph 
which is three times repeated at the beginning of page 
2, and recurs in parallel position repeated two to five times on 
each page, is the most common glyph in the whole Codex. It 
is identifiable probably 38 times, including twice at the top of 
the erased first column on page 4. It heads the second column 
several times on every page, except 7, which is too erased for 
any determination, and page 3, where a slight variation in 
what is left of the postfix at b-3 forbade its insertion under 
the rules I have given limiting restorations. I suspect that 



COMMENTARY ON THE) P^REZ COD^X 



19 



this glyph should be repeated at 3-b-9 and ll-b-9, for the 
following reason. In positions b-6, b-8 or b-10 of each page 
occurs a certain face-glyph |j_r .^1 that is found nowhere 
else in either the Perez, C p "^J Dresden or Tro.-Cort. 
codices. If the initial glyph is repeated at 3-b-9 and ll-b-9 as 
suggested, then (with a slight variation on page 4) this series 
of repetitions of the initial glyph will in each case be closed by 
the face-glyph in question. 

A marked feature of section b is the occurrence, near the 
bottom of each page, of a Cauac-sign, with or without the 
wing-postfix, and with prefixed and superfixed 
numerals, exactly as is so common in connex- 
ion with the Chuen-sign on the Inscriptions. This Cauac-sign 
is usually accompanied by an Ahau and a Tun, each with 
numerals that are for the most part erased. This combination 
suggests distance-numbers and dates, somewhat as on the In- 
scriptions; in this case the double-numbered Cauacs would 
stand for so many uinals plus so many days. The following 
combinations, besides the one above, are also found : 



^ 




^ .|la :| Q :| Q :| S * s 



Section c consists of 16 glyphs in two rows, above the cen- 
tral picture. Glyphs 15 and 16 on each page are erased. The 
chief general characteristic is the frequent repetition of the 
Cimi-compound, J-i^ b]; the repetition on each page of a 
Cauac-sign with [v^rf^ single or double numerals as in 
section b ; and of Tun-compounds, with ^^^ subfix and with 
varying prefixes (frequently faces), as especially see page 5. 

Section d is a triple row of glyphs, originally 21 in some 
instances, but with many now erased. I am able to establish 
few general characteristics for this section, save again the fre- 
quency of the Cimi-compound as in section c, of various Tun- 



20 



COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 



compounds, and of the two glyphs 
With the exception of lO-b-4, the face 




and 




with the tau-eye occurs only in this section d and on pages 15 
to 18. This glyph is exceedingly common both in Dres. and 
Tro.-Cort., the form in which it appears at 3-d-4, 6, (^ 
occurring (including its secondary compounds) no 
less than 126 times in Dres. and 33 times in Tro.-Cort. 

Beneath section d are the remains of red numerals and of 
heads and headdresses of figures which are now too much 
erased to give any basis for comment. 

A most marked feature of the Codex is the very large 
number of Tun-compounds, a feature confined exclusively, 
with one exception, to the present pages 2 to 11, and pages 23, 
24. A classified list shows 28 compounds of this glyph, i 
20 of these showing the subfix, and combined with a 
face or other prefix. The connexion of this fact with the 
Tun-bases of section a, and with the katun-rounds shown by 
the Ahau-series above referred to, is manifest. 

To sum up the general characteristics of this side of the 
MS., and without attempting to interpret any separate glyphs, 
we find the following data: 

The Cimi- 
occurs 25 w.^^-. luo-.-o- 

The numeral-compounded Cauac occurs 20 times. 

The glyph ^^yp^ occurs 13 times on this side and once 
on page 23. ° p ^ 

The Chuen-compound ^^TTj occurs 19 times and prob- 
ably oftener — once only Vjfa 1^ J ^^ the other side of the MS. 

The various Tun-glyphs occur 45 times, on the two sides. 



imi-compound ^t** b"| and its sub-compound 
times. ji//?TT7C 



The face-glyph 



occurs 10 times. 



The Kan-Ymix glyph rsr 



The glyph 
a prefix and a 




occurs 10 times. 

occurs 37 times on this side and, with 
changed postfix, once on page 24. 



With the exceptions noted, none of the above glyphs occur 
at all on the reverse side of the MS. 



COMMENTARY ON THEl FlS,Rt,Z CODEJX 21 






There are finally 19 different Yax ( ^^ ) compounds, 
occurring in all 25 times, 16 of them on this side of the MS. 

With three exceptions the above glyphs are the only ones 
that are repeated in the Codex with any marked frequency. 
The three exceptions are the face with tau-eye, already 
mentioned, and the two glyphs occurring as an initial 

pair twelve times on pages 15 to 18, sec- 
tions a, b, c. 

Of month signs used as such I am only 
satisfied of 12 Cumhu, at 18-b-4 and of 
16 Zac, at 4-c-7. The glyph ^^^^^ at 7-c-2 may also be 
1 Yaxkin. (T^) 

The only cardinal point sign is that of the West, 
occurring at 4-b-14 and again at 16-a-6. 

There are besides these numeral Cauacs, 15 other Cauac 
fj~*] compounds, occurring in all 17 times on this side, and 
twice on pages 23, 24. 

Upon turning over the Codex, we find that whereas on the 
side we have been considering the scribe limited himself to the 
conventional red numerals and backgrounds, with here and 
there a touch of brown, upon this other side we have a wealth 
of color united with a harmony of composition and structure 
that marks a very high degree of artistic skill. It is not alone 
the accuracy of the drawing and the writing, such as we have 
noted in connexion with the study of the glyphs, but the whole 
manuscript as it lies open before us shows that sense of pro- 
portion, that ability to unify without seeming effort a multi- 
tude of details into a perfectly balanced whole, which is the 
positive mark of developed and genuine culture. When we 
remember the exceeding difficulty of combining primary colors 
into a brilliancy that is not garish, and the equal difficulty of 
achieving artistic mastery in a conventional treatment of forms, 
we are simply forced to recognize that we have here the evid- 
ence of an advanced school of art with full rights of inde- 
pendent citizenship. If the figures look strange and sometimes 
distorted, we must remember that our whole training has been 



22 COMMENTARY ON THE PER^Z COD^X 

in the realistic school, by which we are prone to judge all 
others, but by which they must not be judged. We have no 
more right to weigh these compositions in the scales of our art 
motifs than we have to weigh Greek rhythm of quantity or 
Saxon of alliteration against our weights by which we measure 
rhythm of rhyme and stress. In fact it is impossible for us 
even to judge concerning the true harmonic effect of these 
other measures, and it may well be doubted whether the very 
soul itself of our meter is not empty and tinny as compared 
with these others — quality for quality. 

There is one great broad line that divides the nations and 
civilizations of the earth, past and present, in all their arts of 
expression. We may call it that of the ideographic as against 
the literal. It controls the inner form of language and of 
languages; it manifests in the passage of thought from man 
to man; it determines whether the writing of the people shall 
be hieroglyphic or alphabetic; it gives both life and form to 
the ideals of their art. It is a distinction that was clearly re- 
cognized by Wilhelm von Humboldt, when he laid down that 
the incorporative characteristic essential to all the American 
languages is the result of the exaltation of the imaginative over 
the ratiocinative elements of mind. 

The time has passed when we think that the absence of our 
perspective drawing in Japanese pictures is due to the fact 
that these " children of nature " never happened to recognize 
that a thing looks smaller in proportion to its distance, so that 
they ought to come to us to learn. We have come, in some 
measure if not yet fully, to recognize that whereas we show a 
thing to the eye, these other peoples suggest a thought to the 
mind, by their pictures. And we should remember, and re- 
member always, that while our modern art having won its 
technical and artistic skill within the past few hundred years, 
is now beginning to emancipate itself from the materialism of 
the eye by efforts towards the " impressionist " methods, these 
ancient peoples had long since arrived at the ability to convey 
" impressions " through the medium of harmonious composi- 
tions of the most rigid conventional elements — an artistic 



COMMEINTARY ON THE) P^R^Z COD^X 23 

achievement which those who know its difficulties can alone 
begin to appreciate. 

It may be quite easily forgiven to one trained with Western, 
modern eyes, who at first sight of these monuments, in total 
ignorance of their meanings, sees them as strange or grotesque. 
But when, as their strangeness wears away, one comes to see 
the unfailing accuracy with which the glyphs are drawn, one's 
opinion of their makers has to change. And when, with this 
familiarity gained, one advances to an appreciation of the work 
in its bearings as a whole, one has to acknowledge himself fac- 
ing the production of craftsmen who had the inheritance of not 
only generations, but ages of training. Such a combination of 
complete mastery in composition, perfect control of definite 
and fixed forms, and hand technique, can grow up from bar- 
barism in no few hundred years. I would hesitate to think it 
could even come in a few thousands, unless they were years of 
greater settledness and peaceful civilization than our two 
thousand years of disturbed and warring European Christen- 
dom have yet had an example of to show us. It is easy enough 
in the absence of definite historical records, and in our general 
ignorance of human evolution, to theorize and speculate about 
it all; but the commonly accepted picture in our minds of a 
few savage wandering tribes settling and growing up in this 
country some several hundred or a thousand years after the 
Christian era, simply will not fit in with the fact of their ability 
to produce such works a few hundred years later. Had we 
nothing but the Perez Codex and Stela P at Copan, the merits 
of their execution alone, weighed simply in comparison with 
observed history elsewhere, would prove that we have to do 
not with the traces of an ephemeral, but with the remains of 
a wide-spread, settled race and civilization, worthy to be ranked 
with or beyond even such as the Roman, in its endurance, de- 
velopment and influence in the world, and the beginnings of 
whose culture are still totally unknown. As to the Codex be- 
fore us, we can only imagine what the beauty, especially of the 
pages we now come to discuss, must have been when the whole 
was fresh and perfect. 



24 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

The second side of the Codex has to be treated in four divi- 
sions or chapters, the first of which includes pages 15 to 18. 
For numerical reasons which will appear, this chapter must 
probably have begun, however, at least one page further to 
the left. 

These four pages are laid out with three main divisions, 
upper, middle and lower. Too much of the upper section is 
erased for any comment other than that its arrangement seems 
to have been parallel in all respects with the middle section. 
This latter shows three subsections, the backgrounds in some 
cases being red,* containing each a picture (probably of a god 
or a human figure in every instance), surmounted by a black 
and a red numeral and by six glyphs, in double column. This 
gives 12 subsections for the four page'sj' which; we may refer 
to respectively as 15-o, b, c, etc. Of the initial pairs of glyphs 
in each subsection many are complete, and no section is left 
without the correct traces of the corresponding glyph for one 
or other of the positions ; so that although 5 of the 24 glyphs 
are totally erased, we may safely restore them all. Other fea- 
tures of the comparative use and frequency of the glyphs on 
these pages have already been given. 

At the top of each picture is found a black and a red nu- 
meral. These form the consecutive black " counters " or inter- 
val numbers, and the corresponding red day numbers of sub- 
divided tonalamatls, so common in Dres. and Tro.-Cort. It 
is customary to find these tonalamatls divided into fifths or 
fourths, 52 or 65 days respectively — four or five trecenas. 
At the 53rd or 66th day the initial red number is again reached, 
and the calculation is (by hypothesis) repeated, starting again 
at the left with a new day-sign below the first. Such a column 
is seen in the lower part of page 17, where we find 6 Oc, Ik, Ix ; 
these are to be completed by restoring below an erased Cimi 

* Dr. Forstemann (Comm. z. Par. Mayahds.) speaks of the back- 
ground to the central figure on page 16 as black, instead of red ; he 
also describes the number columns as made up of red and black num- 
erals only. There are many similar errors in his Commentary, due to 
his ignorance of the colors, and to the obscurity of the photographic 
reproductions. 



COMMENTARY ON THE) PElR^Z CODEJX 25 

and Ezanab, completing the 260 days and bringing us around 
again to 6 Oc. The total of all the black " counters " in any 
series must always be some multiple of 13, usually 52 or 65, 
as stated. And since each " counter " is the interval between 
its adjoining red numbers, wherever a red and a black number 
are given, the other red number, whether before or after, can 
always be filled in. 

No traces of this initial column appear for the series in the 
middle division, and several of the numerals are also erased. 
Two obscurities must be cleared up before trying to fill out the 
series. On page 16 right is a partly erased black numeral, 
which from the traces may be either 10 or 11. Taking it as 10, 
we have 13 plus 10 equals an erased red 10; plus 5 (on page 
17) equals the red 2 below the 5. This verifies so far. But 
we next find — plus 5 equals 8, which is of course incorrect. 
An inspection of the MS. and the photographs reveals a red- 
dish spot (or perhaps even three such spots) in the extreme up- 
per right corner of the picture space, 17-a, and also a dark spot 
under the black 5 in 17-b. It is possible that the separated red 
dots (one doubtful) are to be read together as 3 ; or that the 
red dots under the 5 are to be disregarded in the count (just as 
is the red 8 on the next page, 18-a), and the red number for 
17-a found in the upper right, above the seated figure. If 
the red number in 17-a is 3, the two numbers in 16-c must be 11. 
Or it may be assumed that the spot under the 5 in 17-b belongs 
to it, making 6 instead of 5, which figures out. The final result 
is the same, as we have either 10 and 6, or 11 and 5, in these two 
places, and either reaches properly the clear red 8 in 17-b. 

In 18-a we find black 26, with a small red 8 below, and a 
large red 13 in the usual place at the side. The red 8 will have 
to be disregarded, as not part of the series, which requires 13, 
and nothing else. 

We may now possibly set down the series as follows, using 
small figures above the the line for the black counters, and put- 
ting in parentheses all numbers restored : 

(6)39(6)(2)S7613ii(ll)53S8S(13)2q3ioiO, or else 
(6)39W (2)5761310(10)52685(13)26131010 



26 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

This leaves us the black number at the beginning, in 15-a, 
and both numbers at the end, 18-c, still not filled in. Adding 
together all the counters we get 82, plus at least the two missing 
black numbers, one at each end. If the total were 104, we 
might expect it to have been comprised within the four sub- 
sections 15-a to 18-a. But 104 is not a tonalamatl fraction. 
130 days, although a tonalamatl half, is an unknown division, 
and would hardly get into the space. If we begin the series 
in the upper division of the page (as occurs in Dres.) and come 
around to the middle division, the probabilities would require 
that it displayed a full series of 260 days, and again also that 
it began to the left of page 15. The probabilities of this series 
as it is, therefore, indicate at least a page 14 to the left, ar- 
ranged like the other four, and forming one chapter with them. 

We have now to deal with the puzzling numeral columns, 
in alternating colors, found to the left of each subsection of 
the upper and middle divisions — 24 columns in all. These 
have been referred to at some length in the preliminary dis- 
cussion of the colors, and there is little more that can be said. 
As there said, the entire reason for alternating the colors can 
not be certainly assumed. Alternation of color occurs not only 
where it is needed to distinguish bars, but also where we have 
only lines of dots, which are of course self -separating. And to 
say that it is only for artistic purposes is a mere begging of the 
question. Only four or five of these columns are complete, 
and a footing of the numbers in each gives us varying amounts 
from 113 to 153, and tells us nothing. On the parts that are 
left we six times have a Chuen ^^ ^ with a black number 
apparently belonging to it (perhaps a multiplier), and also once 
a double Chuen, as in Tro.-Cort. The use of the red kal-sign, 
or 20, is frequent. 

The lower division of these pages was also subdivided, into 
four sections on each, which we may refer to as d, e, f, g. 
Each contains a picture, with black and red numerals as above, 
surmounted by four glyphs only. The pictures are all quite 
incomplete ; neither is there anything to add to what has been 
already said of the glyphs. 



COMMENTARY ON THE) PEJREZ COD^X 27 

In the middle of page 17 one tonalamatl ends, with a red 6, 
and another begins, also with 6. The second starts with the 
day 6 Oc, is divided into fifths, and the initial column must 
have been in full : 6 Oc, Ik, Ix, Cimi, Ezanab. The restora- 
tion of the series gives: 6222(15 in two stages) (4) 10145 'p^Js 

however only gives a total of 51 for the black counters. There 
is space to the right for another section, but whatever may 
have been written there has entirely disappeared. The last 
three numbers V6 seem unmistakable, the •••• especially so. 
If we regard the last 6 as an error for 5, and then restore ^6 
in section 18-g, it would give the necessary 52. This is the one 
passage in the Codex where I can see no way but to assume a 
mistake in the writing; for 1 plus 4 does not equal 6, and un- 
less for some entirely unknown reason the error is clear. 

The preceding tonalamatl may have been divided either into 
52- or 65-day periods. If the period was 52, it must have 
begun with an initial column on page 15, right side. In this 
event it would be restored as follows : 

(initial 6)(19m two stages) (12)65712(12 in two stages) ( 1 1 ) 85^ 

giving 52. In this case a third tonalamatl must have begun 
somewhere to the left, and ended on the erased right side of 
page 15. 

A different restoration would carry the initial column back 
to the extreme edge of page 15, when we would have this: 

(initial6)(2)(8)8311(l)(ll twostages)(12)65712(12 twostages)(ll)86 

giving 65. 

To choose between these two would be mere guessing. 

The well-known pages 19 and 20 come next. Together 
they make four compartments, up and down the full length 
of the pages, two with red and two with black backgrounds. 
Each is, or rather was, preceded by a column of 13 " year- 
bearers." The left column on each page I have restored, al- 
though no traces of it are left. But apart from its manifest 
necessity, as part of the series, if the width of the red ground 
on page 20 (see the photographs) is measured, it will be found 
to be just the correct proportion, and part of the straight left 



28 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

edge of the red can still be seen, just left of the rod in the 
hand of the mummy-figure, and leaving just room for the 
Ezanab column. In the colored plates I have only shown 12 
instead of 13 day-signs in each column, but a measurement of 
the space above and below shows that the missing four are to 
be placed at the top and not at the bottom. These two pages 
therefore have application in some way to 52 solar years, be- 
ginning with 1 Lamat and ending with 13 Akbal (Votan). 

These " year-bearers " are those of the Tzental instead of 
the Yucatecan system, as described by Landa, and on these two 
pages rests, so far as regards known subject-matter, the assign- 
ment of the Codex Perez to the Palenque rather than to the 
northern Maya district. It is thus to be considered with the 
Inscriptions of that region, and with the Dresden Codex.* 
And in accord with what is known of the state of the different 
parts of the country at the time of the Conquest, and of the 
history of the break-up and extinction of the Maya empire, it 
must be assigned the greater antiquity on that account. 

It is probable that pages 19 and 20 had no text passages. 

Pages 21 and 22 again, judging from the coloring and the 
arrangement, seem to form a pair. Each had on the upper 
part probably five rows of glyphs, some 70 in all, of which only 
10 or 12 are at all recognizable. Contrary to all the pages 
hitherto discussed, it may be that these glyphs are to be read 
from right to left. The faces in these all look to the right, 
and the customary prefixes are all on the right. In classifying 
these glyphs, therefore, they must be all reversed. 

The greater part of page 21 is framed in and divided up 
by green bands, evidently for water, two branches of which, 
after crossing a constellation band near the bottom, end one 
in falling torrents, the other in a circle surrounding a ^tn-sign, 
, the sun, and itself surrounded by four dragon's heads, 



all figured in the midst of the torrents. Below this symbol 

* Where to place the Tro.-Cort., in view of the apparent Kan, 
Muluc Ix, Cauac years indicated on pages 34-37, and the 13 Cumhu 
immediately next to 13 Ahau on page 73 (13 Ahau 13 Cumhu falling 
only possibly in a year 12 Lamat) I am not ready to say. 



COMMENTARY ON THE! Fl^RtZ CODEX 29 

is the open mouth of a dragon, towards which is looking and 
pointing a black-faced figure, of the god D, the Ancient of 
Days, described by Schellhas as the moon and night god. To 
the left of the torrents is a figure, nearly erased, but with the 
wristlets characteristic of the god of death, and holding in the 
hand a torch. The glyph ^'r'n'-rj: occurs written in the torrents, 
at the left side. cfcl3 

The green bands divide the middle of the page into six 
compartments containing, so far as not totally erased, 65 day- 
signs, in columns of five. All my efforts to relate these signs 
either to each other or to any other series in the codices, have 
so far been fruitless. The upper seven columns have each a 
black numeral beneath, running from right to left, 1 2 3 3 5 6 
and the dot of another 6. 

Each of the columns of five day-signs forms a closed cir- 
cuit returning into itself. In the upper row the 1st and 6th 
columns show successive days 8 apart in order ; columns 2, 3, 
4, 5 and 7 are 16 apart in order. The 1st in the lower row is 
at intervals of 8, the 2nd and 5th at intervals of 16. The 3rd 
column is, with the 4th, an exception, the intervals being suc- 
cessively 8, 4, 4, 8, 16. That this is probably not a scribal 
error is shown by the fact that the same series, though begin- 
ning with different days, occurs in both columns. The 6th and 
possible 7th columns of the lower part are indeterminable. 

We thus have three rounds of 5 times 8, or 40 days ; seven 
rounds of 5 times 16, or 80 days ; two irregular rounds of 40 
days. These are not such columns as could form the beginning 
of a series of tonalamatl fifths, in which the successive days 
come 12 apart. So that this section must be left unexplained.* 

* Mr. Bowditch suggests to me that the numbers 1 2 3 3 5 6 6 are 
to be read with each of the day signs in their respective columns, 
and, being placed in the middle, may apply both to the upper and lower 
sets. The strongest objection I can see to this is that the numbers 
are black, instead of the usual red. In this case, instead of inter- 
vals of 8 and 16, giving rounds of 5x8 = 40 and 5x16 = 80 days, we 
would have intervals of 156 and 208 (from 1 Ymix to 1 Muluc, etc.), 
giving rounds of 780 and 1040 days respectively. Or, if read upwards, 
we would have 52 and 104 day intervals (1 Ben to 1 Chicchan, etc.)i 
and rounds of 260 and 520 days. But whichever be the case, the page 
is sui generis, and its why is still beyond us. 



30 COMMENTARY ON THE P^REZ CODIJX 

At the right of page 21 begins a solid red background 
which probably extended right across page 22. Two standing 
spotted green figures appear on page 21 ; seven seated figures, 
one green spotted, on page 22. 

Page 22 is crossed by a winding dragon whose body is 
covered by the " constellation band." A narrow green band 
also winds across the page, inclosing two of the upper figures. 
Below the dragon and this green band are seen, seated above 
the open mouths of two erect dragons, two figures in conversa- 
tion, each bearing various insignia of the death god. A very 
curious cartouche outline, partly erased, at the lower right, 
incloses what seems to be 13 Ahau, 3, 6, the right hand dot 
of the 3 being erased. 

On pages 23 and 24 the brilliant backgrounds of the pre- 
ceding pages disappear, and we have two pages, to be read to- 
gether, of glyphs, day-signs and small figures, finely and spar- 
ingly illuminated with the usual four colors. The body of the 
dragon is apparently continuous from page 21, and crosses 
these pages entirely with the constellation band, displayed along 
its full length. 

The upper part of these two pages contained originally 91 
glyphs, perhaps to be read from right to left, the same as 21 
and 22. The faces look to the right, the usual /»r^fixes and the 
few numerals are also on the right of their respective com- 
pounds. Many of the glyphs are the same as those on pages 
2 to 11, reversed right for left. Glyph 23 -a- 11 should be spe- 
cially noted. At first sight the numeral prefix, 6, appears to 
belong, postfixed, to glyph 23 -a- 17. But on investigation we 
find the same compound, a yax-chuen with (^^ prefix, also 
at 21-a-8 and 24-a-26, in each case with the 6 attached. The 
f^^ affix just below this number 6 is also plainly a /»r^fix to 
glyph 23-a-12; so that glyph 23-a-ll must be read 
and include the 6 as prefix. At 24-a-26, U 
the same glyph is written left to right. |^ 

There are also a few other glyphs on these pages which 
cannot be regarded as right to left. Such for instance, as 





comme;ntary on th^ p:eRE;z code;x 31 

at 23-a-19 and 24-a-17. In this glyph the affix 



I \ [tT. .J at the side is properly a prefix (perhaps the posses- 
sive), and I do not recall any instance of its use as a postfix. 
In the affixes, the superfix and prefix positions may as a gen- 
eral rule be regarded as wholly identical; also the subfix and 
postfix positions. But also as a general rule the two pairs are 
I believe not to be interchanged, any more than we interchange 
prefixes and endings in English; this rule is not universal for 
all affixes, as some seem able to go anywhere, but it is one I 
have always regarded in my glyph classifying. As to 
it is to be noted that this is a symmetrical glyph and 
as there can be no doubt that these glyphs were equally legible 
to the Maya reader written in either direction, it may well be 
regarded as unimportant, and not to be rated even as an error, 
is a still stronger similar case. Here the wing j^^^r 
affix to the right is certainly a postfix, the superfix 
is in the usual left to right order, |Q(h) and the main element 
written left to right, as in all its other instances. And Q[w0Sj 
is again in point. (fgjhjigl 

The iace-tun compounds on these pages, and also on the 
opposite side of the manuscript, should be particularly noted. 

Below the constellation band, inscribed on a wavy green 
band (the waters of space ?) are seven repetitions of 




or the sun glyph (rFl) within the shields.* Between [j/j^JAJj 
each appeared probably two black 8's. The sun-shields are 
about to be seized by different animals, dragon, tortoise, bird, 
etc., a seeming evident suggestion of either an eclipse, or the 
passage of the sun into some zodiacal sign. Another series of 
seven sun-shields, on the green band, separated by numeral 8's, 
and attacked by animals and a skeleton, crosses the lower part 
of the pages. 

Between these two bands we find a series of columns of 
five day-signs each preceded by red numerals. Allowing for 
the space erased I have restored the last column to the right, 

* I have retained the usual term " shields " for the flaring forms 
which embrace the sun glyph, though without accepting its appropriate- 
ness. They might with equal likelihood be conventionalized wings. 



32 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

and part of the preceding. This gives 12 columns only, where- 
as at least 13 are required. There may have been a 12th col- 
umn to the left of page 23, where there is just the proper 
space for this,* leaving the dragon's body to curve above the 
column so as to pass to page 22. The series may have con- 
tinued on across page 25 ; 13 columns on pages 23, 24, and 7 
more filling page 25, would make a full cycle of 20 columns. 
And in this connexion it should be noted that the dragon's body 
with constellation band goes almost to the edge of page 24 
with no sign of ending or turning, such as might be expected 
if the chapter ends here. And if the constellation dragon 
continues over page 25, the column series may well have done 
the same. 

Before discussing this series it will be of advantage to re- 
view what the Codex gives us on the question of reading left 
to right or right to left. 

First, in both the Dresden and Tro.-Cort. the glyph faces 
look to the left ; and, as shown by the calculations, reading is 
from left to right, with a very few possible exceptions, such as 
the tables on Dres. 24, 64, 69, etc. 

In the Perez, as shown by the tonalamatls on 15 to 18, the 
52 year-bearers on 19 and 20, and the katun-series on 2 to 12, 
the general direction of the reading is also left to right. 

Above or below each of the red number columns of these 
pages 23, 24, is to be found a blue number. These numbers 
make a katun-series, starting with 4, decreasing by 2, if we 
read it left to right. It is not, to be sure, accompanied by the 
customary Ahau-sign, ("fej*) . but, taken in connexion with the 
marked parallelism of the glyphs, face-tun glyphs and also 
others, on these two pages with those on pages 2 to 11, already 
discussed, the possibility that a katun-series is a part of this 
subject-matter must be considered. 

On the other hand, the glyphs in the upper part of all four 

* Dr. Forstemann ignores the space on the right of page 24, and 
restores two columns to the left of page 23 in order to make up the 
thirteen columns ; but, as shown by the edges of the pages in the 
photographs, one column restored in each place will just fill the obliter- 
ated space. 



COMMENTARY ON THE) P^R^Z CODEJX 33 

pages 21 to 24 face to the right, and, as already set out in 
detail, are practically all written in reverse position as regards 
their prefixes, etc. And so also does the Eb-glyph in the day- 
columns we are now considering face to the right. These col- 
umns, unlike those on page 21, which include all of the 20 day- 
signs, only include 5 of the day-signs: Kan, Lamat, Eb, Cib 
and Ahau ; Eb being the only non-symmetrical one of these. 

We have thus quite strong evidence, especially as provided 
by the position of the prefixes, for a right to left reading, op- 
posed by the direction of this katun-number series — if it be 
one. In Egyptian writing, of course, the direction of the read- 
ing changes with the facing of the figures. 

To return now to the columns, themselves, all the day-signs 
in any one column have each the same red numeral, so that we 
have : 8 Cib, 8 Ahau, 8 Kan, 8 Lamat, 8 Eb ; and so on. The 
red numerals to each column also decrease by 2 towards the 
right, pari passu with the blue numerals. If we read each 
column downwards, it will form a closed circuit or round, re- 
turning into itself, with intervals of 104 days, from 8 Cib to 
8 Ahau, etc., and again from 8 Eb back to 8 Cib. But if we 
next try to go to the next column, the series breaks, for from 
8 Eb to 6 Lamat is only 76 days. We get a like break whether 
we read upward or downward, or right to left. Taking the 
columns separately then, the entire series (whether made up 
of 13, 20 or any other number of columns) cannot be made to 
read in one regular series, with a constant interval between the 
successive days of the whole. 

But, if we restore two columns, making 13 columns, and 
then read horizontally across, either right to left, or left to 
right, one line after another, the first day of the second line 
follows the last of the first, and after going through the whole 
65 terms, we return again from the last of the last line to the 
first of the first — always with a constant interval. In other 
words, this section could be written around a wheel. If we 
read left to right, the distance from (10 Kan) to 8 Cib, etc., 
is 232 days; 232 x 65 = 15,080. Or if from right to left,* the 
* Dr. Seler's reading; Gesammelte Ahhandlungen, I, 515. 



34 COMME^NTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEJX 

interval from (12 Lamat) to 1 Cib, etc., is 28 days; 28x 13 = 
364, X 5 = 1820. That both of these products are multiples of 
260 is a truism, and cannot in any way require us to see a 
tonalamatl reckoning as the basis of this passage. Nor is each 
separate day-column a tonalamatl in fifths, as so often found. 

Finally, if we should assume that the series went on across 
page 25, to a full katun-round of 20 terms, the circuit would 
be broken; line 2 would not regularly follow line 1, and so on. 
The probabilities then, as derived from the succession of the 
days, seem almost conclusive that this is a section of 65 terms, 
to be read horizontally, in whichever direction. And then, 
since the subdivision of 15,080 days (or 1820, if read right to 
left) into 65 terms, necessarily gives us successive day-numbers 
decreasing (or increasing) by 2, the likeness to the katun-series 
may be only apparent — a simple truism. Or, on the other 
hand, in view of the glyph similarities (a point which I think 
should always be given close attention), there may be some 
relation to the katun-series — all in spite of the right-left or 
left-right difficulties. 

What part the blue * number series plays, I cannot say. 
Dr. Seler,t suggests that they are " corrections," to set each 
term ahead 20 days. This states a fact, but does not give any 
explanation. Each blue number is 6 less than its red column, 
and 7 Kan is of course 20 days later than 13 Kan. 

* The blue is a true blue, quite distinct from the turquoise blue 
elsewhere, and is found in the case of these numbers only. 

t Gesammelte Abhandlungen, I, 515; " Zur mexik. Chronologie." 



COMMENTARY ON TH^ PElREZ CODEjX 35 

THE MAYA GLYPHS 

Up to date our knowledge of the meanings of the glyphs is 
still to all intents and purposes limited to the direct tradition 
we have through Landa, and the deductions immediately in- 
volved in these. We know the day and month signs, the num- 
bers, including and 20, four units of the archaic calendar 
count (the day, tun, katun and cycle), the cardinal point signs, 
the negative particle. We have not fully solved the uinal or 
month sign, which seems to be chuen on the monuments and a 
cauac, or chuen, in the manuscripts. We are able to identify 
what must be regarded as metaphysical or esoteric applications 
of certain glyphs in certain places^ such as the face numerals.* 
But every one of these points is either deducible directly by 
necessary mathematical calculation, or else from the names of 
certain signs given by Landa in his day and month list, and 
then found in other combinations, such as yax, kin, etc. That 
we have as many of the points as we have, and still cannot 
form from them the key — that we cannot read the glyphs 
— is a constant wonder ; but a fact nevertheless. 

The innumerable efforts to identify the glyphs by their su- 
perficial appearance, calling the banded headdress a " pottery 
decoration," and explaining the face-glyph of the North there- 
by, because in Maya xaman is north and xamach a tortilla dish 
(to say nothing of others still more fanciful, by a host of 
writers), have broken down, as was to be expected. I mention 
this instance because it illustrates fully the results of super- 
ficial analysis, united with a seeming ineradicable tendency 
even among those most able students who have added the 
most to our stock of Maya knowledge (among whom Dr. 
Brinton was certainly one of the foremost), to treat these 
glyphs as carelessly done, to disregard the differences between 
manifest variants, or else to talk freely, whenever a passage 

* The Tibetan use of symbolical words in place of numerals is worth 
noting here, even though we do not know the Maya face numerals well 
enough as yet for any comparison. See Csoma de Koros, Tibetan 
Grammar, Calcutta, 1824, pp. 155 et seq.; also Ph. fid. Foucaux, 
Grammaire Tibetaine, Paris, 1858, pp. 157 et seq. 



36 COMMENTARY ON TH^ PEREZ CODEX 

does not fit the explanation which is being worked out, of 
scribal errors. 

In the first place, if these glyphs are to be interpreted prim- 
arily by the Yucatecan Maya dialect (one in which we have 
most ample printed and MS. lexicographic material), and if 
in that dialect no other words at all resembling xaman and 
xamach are found, as we are told, then .{if the Mayas named 
the north star, or the North, by a pun on a tortilla dish) 
wherever this banded headdress is found, we must assume the 
text to be treating either of the North, or of tortillas. That 
might safely be left to break down of its own weight ; but we 
shall also see that the explanation is given in total disregard 
of manifest, important variants. This banded headdress ap- 
pears ornamenting at least ^ 
five separate and distinct ^ 



faces ; one a wholly human face, the others with various other 
definite characteristics, the most frequent and prominent of 
which are the monkey-like face and mouth we see in the 
glyph for the north, and a sort of bird's plumage cov- 
ering the back of the head. These two are separate, 
are never combined, and must be classified rigidly apart. We 
have therefore three elements, the monkey face, the plumage 
covering (if we may call it so), and the banded headdress. It 
is obvious that while the monkey face may be specific of the 
North, the bands are not specific at all, but general. 

It is with the greatest diffidence that I suggest any interpre- 
tations on my own part as yet, but it is of course certain that 
the distinction of masculine and feminine existed in the spoken 
language, and it must exist somewhere in the glyphs. And it 
will have to be a prefix, not a postfix ; for what I may call the 
syntax of glyph formation must follow that of the speech. 
At the bottom of Dres. 61 and 62 are seven identical Oc-glyphs 
with subfix, and with prefixes. Five of these prefixes are faces 
with the woman's curl, recognized on the figured illustrations. 
One is a face with the banded headdress. Remembering that 
this headdress occurs not infrequently on a plain human face 
with no other characteristic, it is not a far guess that it may 



COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 37 

have denoted a freeman, a lord, entitled to such a headdress. 
In this event it may on the one hand serve as a simple mascu- 
line definitive, the prefix ah-, and on the other, to attach the 
idea of lordship to other glyphs with which it is incorporated, 
as : the North Star, or region, the Lord of the Firmament. 

This illustration serves to show what seems to me an essen- 
tial preliminary of the work we have in hand, and the part to 
which I have so far devoted most effort. The glyphs must be 
determined, compared and classified, and what I have called 
the "syntax" of their composition, studied. The particles and 
their positions, the various incorporated elements, are of the 
utmost importance, though they are very frequently ignored. 
They are the zvritten picture of the spirit of the spoken lan- 
guage. The task I have most looked forward to in this con- 
nexion has of course been with the Dresden, but having started 
upon the Perez for the reasons I have given, it was a smaller 
task in itself, and could be brought to completion within less 
time, while serving as part of the larger work. As the deter- 
mination and classification of the glyphs had to proceed all as 
one work, it has enabled me not only to complete my Index 
for this codex, but also to print the text in type, and to verify 
and bring out such facts regarding the color questions as was 
possible to do — both of them stages needed in the general 
work. In doing it I have studied with my hands as well as 
with eyes, and I have been well repaid. The actual labor has 
not been small, but it has been worth it all if only to see before 
the eyes something of what this Codex must have been when 
fresh and new. For as I have said, while in my colored restor- 
ation I may have made some mistakes of eye, for which the 
photographs will be a check, I have guessed nothing. 

The classification of the glyphs meets of course with some 
difficulties in detail, but it can readily be cast into a quite 
simple general outline. Something over 2000 different com- 
pound forms are found in the three codices. The simple ele- 
ments composing these are perhaps 350 in number, and may be 
divided broadly into main elements and affixes or particles. 
First of course come day and month signs, which, with kin, 



38 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

tun, kal, and a few marked variants, use up 50 numbers. Next 
will come the faces^ about 75 simple elements. Next the ani- 
mal and bird heads and figures, about 50 numbers. Next the 
hands, crosses, etc., and the list of conventional or geometric 
forms, another 75. Then some 75 particles. 

The cards required for the first 50 numbers, including only 
compounds formed from day-signs and excluding day-signs 
used simply as such, amount to practically one half of the 
number required for the whole index. Certain elements, not- 
ably the kin, the tun, the monkey-face with banded headdress, 
already referred to, the face with tau-eye, the yax, the cross, 
produce a great number of compounds — a fact of note, as it is 
evident that the number of compounds, having due regard to 
our limited material, is an index to the relative position of the 
idea in the Mayan vocabularies. Some of the day-signs pro- 
duce practically no compounds, others a great many. The 
compounds fall readily into a system of primary and secondary 
derivatives, by which their relations may be easily studied, 
and their proportions recognized. 

Coming to the distinguishing of variants, one first meets 
the fact that the three codices differ. The writing of the Dres- 
den and Perez is regular and accurate, the Perez exceedingly 
so. Every different variant must here be accounted for. In 
Tro.-Cort. the writing is crude and careless, so that we have 
many evident abbreviations which are not genuine variants. 
In the next place, certain regular differences occur in this or 
that glyph or particle, between the forms of the different 
manuscripts. Thus the Perez uses [,t^„] and the others [-lliJ 
and so on. A comparison of the compounds shows that these 
must be the same. The regular variations between the three 
manuscripts and variations of abbreviation, when well evid- 
enced, may be eliminated. 

The day-signs have many variants, mostly quite simple, 
and all checked positively by the use of the form in some day- 
series. Ix has many forms. There are at least three entirely 
different Cimi forms : (U^ f^\°1 C^^ There are found 
two different forms of \za/j jo^J g^^ the closed eye, one 



COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 39 

of which certainly is Cimi, the other occurs regularly in such 
different compounds (and I think never as a simple day-sign), 
as to make it necessary to separate it; C^T^ it has probably 
a different meaning entirely — perhaps L^^ that of sleep. 

A noteworthy technical line is to be found in the drawing 
of the glyphs. Whereas in the case of the day-signs, faces, and 
conventional forms in general, certain variations of handwrit- 
ing, etc., are evidently permitted, but only within certain defin- 
ite lines, in some few animal glyphs no two instances are just 
alike. In other words, the glyphs in general are conventions 
with established meanings — actual writing ;* but we also have 
pictures of birds or animal forms, where the writer is not fol- 
lowing convention, but nature. The freedom of style used in 
the latter case only serves to emphasize the conventionality of 
the former, and to separate the entire system from either pic- 
ture or rebus writing. See the following fish-glyph forms: 



These pictures are almost exclusively in uncompounded forms, 
whereas the conventional glyphs, whether human, animal or 
otherwise, are subject to the general rules of incorporation. 

Writing is a system of conventional forms with established 
meanings, corresponding to and reflecting the structure of the 
spoken language; some picture elements whose value as such 
has remained either wholly or partly present in the minds of 
those who use them, are not inconsistent with genuine writing ; 
when present they add vividness to the writing, and emphasize 
its ideographic character. A combination of picture forms only, 
may be used as means of communication to a certain degree, 
but can never constitute zvriting; that, like speech, must pro- 
vide for the expression of the relationships and categories that 
make up the structure of language. 

* " These [the Maya glyphs] do not represent a real script, as is so 
often maintained, but are only pictures which have been reduced to the 
appearance of letters, contracted to a narrow space, made cursive." I 
— Dr. Eduard Seler, Codex Vaticanus No. 3773, page 65. — Well? 



40 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

Egyptian writing, which is of course true writing, contains 
elements of every class. It has symbols and also pictures, not 
only of things or creatures, but of actions as well, " contracted 
to a narrow space, made cursive " ; these pictures, although 
still ranking as such, stand for words — they can be pro- 
nounced, and have syntax, which is the crucial test. Egyptian 
next has unrecognizable forms, whose meaning has become a 
simple convention, but which still stand for words, or particles. 
It has elements which are not pronounced for themselves, but 
only serve as determinatives. (Such a use of determinatives 
is not limited to hieroglyphic writing, but is possessed also by 
alphabetic ; the second o in the word too is strictly a determin- 
ative, to distinguish the adverb too from the preposition to, 
both pronounced alike. Tibetan has an elaborate system of 
silent letters used as grammatical determinatives.) And then 
Egyptian writing finally has pure alphabetic elements. 

As to Maya, I think it far more than likely that, when at 
last deciphered, it will be found to contain most if not all of 
these classes — mutatis mutandis. There seems every evidence 
that it is made up of pictures with probably both concrete and 
abstract meanings; word-conventions; and grammatical par- 
ticles. It is at least probable that there are also silent determ- 
inatives and not unlikely that there is also a pure phonetic or 
alphabetic element. That the latter element is not the basic 
one may I think be now regarded as established. 



CONCLUSION 

Introite, nam et hie dii sunt. 

It is not my desire to add, as a conclusion to a comment 
bearing on the restoration and interpretation of Mayan hiero- 
glyphic texts, any general discussion of the data which tradition 
and the early Spanish writers have left us of the mythology, 
rites and customs of the American races ; and still less to run 
out a line of attractive analogies between isolated instances of 
their words, symbols or works, with those of any of the various 
nations of the other hemisphere ; nor to build up any theory of 
descent or intercourse with any of these latter as today known 
to history. The subject before us is on its very face too vast; 
the written and traditional data are entirely too scanty and 
too little understood; and while we are still obliged to desig- 
nate the various gods and personages of the Codices as god A, 
B, etc., and are unable to fix definitely* a single inscribed date in 

* See Memoranda on the Chilam Balam Calendars, C. P. Bowditch, 
1901. The obscurities of the Chronicles render the questions con- 
nected with Ahpula's death exceedingly difficult. For instance, the im- 
mediate context in the books of Mani and Tizimin make the date 1536, 
as given in numerals, an impossible one. But, if the date as given in 
Maya terms is to be accepted at all (and it certainly is too specific to 
be rejected), then by the long count such a date must have been either 
1502, 5350, or 12,786 years after the date of Stela 9, Copan. Mr. Bow- 
ditch favors the lower figure, chiefly because it is the lower, and thus 
puts Stela 9 at A. d. 34. To get this date the longest possible distance 
from Ahpula's death to the end of the katun must be used — that is, 
" 6 tuns short " must be taken to mean " almost 7 tuns short." I can 
only say here that if, in correcting the figures 1536, as demanded by the 
immediate context, we make the simplest possible correction, and put 
them one katun earlier, 1516, and then take as the unexpired time to the 
end of the katun the shortest of the three terms given as possible, or 
5 tuns 139 days, bringing the end of Katun 13-Ahau on Jan. 28, 1522, 
we; not only bring the end of Katun 11-Ahau within the year 1541, as 
is most positively stated by the practically contemporary Pech Chron- 
icle, but we also bring in line nearly all the important events of the 
Chronicles, from the fall of Mayapan, ca. 1450, the coming of the 
Spaniards, and the smallpox, in 11-Ahau (1521 to 1541), the conversion 
to Christianity in 9-Ahau, down to Landa's death (1579) in 7-Ahau; 
as well as many outside references. Any other combination requires 
harsher emendations somewhere else. But the above choice of the term 
of 5 tuns 139 days, thus seemingly called for, means that Stela 9 at 
Copan is dated, by the long count, 5350 years before Ahpula's death, or 
B. c. 3824. Whether this is right, is a question for the future. 



42 COMMENTARY ON THE) PEREZ CODEX 

terms of our chronology, or tell the event attached to it, fancied 
comparisons amount to little. And the favorite " linguistic " 
method is more fragile yet, especially when the uncertainties 
of spelling and transliteration are considered, and above all the 
frequent total ignorance of the past history and changes the 
different words compared must have gone through since the 
time when by any possibility a physical transmission from one 
locality to the other could have taken place. These ought to 
be commonplaces of research, but it is to be feared that they 
have not quite yet become so.* There is no need to give in- 
stances of such false analogies which have served as the bases 
for a multitude of filiation theories, all equally well " support- 
ed " by details, and all mutually exclusive. Nor on the other 
hand can we deny the existence actually of a very great num- 
ber of resemblances and identities which cannot be ignored, 
but must imply connexions of some kind. The English nation 
is not a Hebrew people because it had a prime minister Disraeli, 
nor Greeks because they have a Queen Alexandra, nor Romans 
because of certain local names. Such facts even when real, and 
established as such, may only be evidence of a single contin- 
ental culture or transcontinental intercourse. 

It has been the dictum of a certain school of archaeology, 

* " In ethnology however one troubles oneself little with the detail of 
linguistic structure. It is held quite sufficient to gather from different 
peoples and collate a couple of hundred vocables, into whose actual 
nature all insight is lacking, and then upon dubious, often purely super- 
ficial and apparent similarities, to deduce linguistic affinities. Or else, 
as is now most in fashion, the claims of linguistic research towards the 
solution of ethnological questions are reduced to a ' most modest share ' 
in comparison with other fields ' somewhat more in line with natural 
sciences' — meanwhile pointing for justification to the absurdities set 
forth as the results of too far-fetched linguistic deductions. . . . The 
errors and sophistries charged against ethnological linguistics are rather 
an accidental result of the individuality of single investigators, than 
essential to the subject. They are at least scarcely greater than those 
to the credit of recent Anthropometry. A brief glance at the strange 
changes of opinion in the latter field during the last three decades, in 
spite of all its boasted figures, shows how little ground it has to throw 
stones. Serious students, such as Wallace and Dall, whose critical 
ability in Zoomorphology no one can deny, and who do not rest con- 
tent with a few skulls of doubtful provenance, gathered a la Hagen- 
beck, have come to a wholly negative view of the value of Cranio- 
metry." — Dr. Otto Stoll, Maya-Sprachen der Pokom-Gruppe, I, vii, ix. 



COMMENTARY ON THE; F^RtZ CODE^X 43 

Still very much in general favor, that all these identities are to 
be explained as the natural result of the innate tendencies of 
untutored men, on their evolutionary rise, at certain cultural 
stages, to imagine the same myths and invent the same rites. 
From this as a principle I wholly dissent; it simply does not 
meet the facts. There are of course many facts to which it 
does apply, such as those that both Chinese and Americans 
made paper, tanned leather, made feather ornaments, used 
star and flower names for their children, and so on: facts 
which had been used to prove Chinese and American identity, 
and to which Dr. Brinton justly added in retort that they also 
slept at night, wore clothes when it was cold, and so on. But 
there is a very great number of. facts, a number constantly 
growing with research, which cannot be so dismissed. Such 
are the employment of abstract symbolism, the erection of 
great structures all having a definite and identical astronomical 
bearing and evident use, the common possession of so-called 
myths all telling the one story, and only slightly modified 
locally, such as the birth-stories of Huitzilopochtli and of 
Herakles, and the stories of the travail of Latona pursued by 
the Python and of the Woman clothed with the Sun in Revel- 
ation; or the universal tradition of seven ancestral caves or 
cities in America, compared with the Tibetan and Puranic 
stories of the seven lotus-leaves of Sveta-dvipa, the first con- 
tinental home of the race ; the Hacha de cobre of the Miztecs 
and the ever-turning spear of jade of the Japanese story of 
the place where the gods first descended on earth ; or the whole 
question of the origin of the Zodiac. These things, and a host 
of others, need a different explanation — all the more since 
the more we are learning of them the more we find that they 
enclose facts of which the hypothetical " savage children " 
could not, ex hypothesi, have been aware — some facts indeed 
which our very latest modern science is only now learning.* 

* Our present day speculators never seem to think for a moment 
that these things may conceal, and thereby preserve, some real meaning, 
or be more than nonsense. The theory of mythological interpretation 
pushed to such extremes as in the " animistic " explanations of Weber, 
Keightley, and others, and not absent from the writings of some 



44 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

But while dissenting now wholly from this theory (of " co- 
incidentalism "), one cannot but hold in all respect those who 
in their time held it. It is the duty of the savant to make 
the best logical use he can of what he has, and he cannot be 
criticised for not using finer scales than the time affords. And 
this theory was needed as an answer to the absurdities, brought 
out in utter disregard of physical possibilities, postulating off- 
hand migrations and filiations and evolutionary advances to- 
tally impossible within the periods allowed for their completion, 
and utterly without parallel in any known part of the world or 
page of history. And yet, when this theory had its birth, the 
most of Christendom was still enthralled by the Ussherian 
chronology of the creation and history of the whole divine 
universe, which simply did not have room in it for all these 
things to happen naturally and connectedly. 

And if it is urged that present science had already say a 
generation ago, a second's time we might say in the life of 
humanity, begun to emancipate our ideas of time and evolution, 
still it is the fact that that increase in breadth of vision has 
so far applied to every known thing but man himself. The 
old belief that gave the world 6000 years of life, at least put 
thinking man at its beginning; the modern nightmare gives us 
a world for hundreds of millions of years without thought, 
and makes human civilization an ephemeral episode of a few 
seconds of universal duration. Disregarding, one is forced to 
say wilfully, the fact that every single one of their own argu- 
ments in favor of anthropoid descent for man would equally 

Americanists (namely, that it was all nothing but ridiculous or con- 
cocted fancy, taken soberly) is bad enough, and argues little breadth 
or insight, when applied to the myths of a single people, considered 
alone. Applied to comparative mythology, in the state of things today, 
it is simply impossible. The plain fact is, that such identities as these 
must indicate one of two things : a common tradition, locally modified 
by circumstances ; or a fact in nature or history, symbolically expressed 
in different ways according to the times and modes. And it most prob- 
ably indicates both of these. It is indeed hard to account for the ex- 
tent, and the weight given to some of these " myths," now that we are 
coming to a better appreciation of the scope and greatness of ancient 
civilizations — everywhere — except they do correspond to actual facts 
in nature and history. And it might be worth our while to get at 
some of these. 



COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 45 

support a theory that the anthropoids are debased offshoots of 
human stocks,* biology still demands such a lapse of time for 
its physical evolution that its adherents oppose and belittle to 
the utmost every bit of evidence of any antiquity even for the 
physical frame of man. We have, to say nothing of the rest 
of the world, Egyptian civilization now pushed back 10,000 
years, and (together with others as we slowly uncover them) 
as far removed as ever from barbarism, if not indeed growing 
greater as we go back; but we are not allowed anything but 
apelike, half arboreal savages 50,000 years ago. And yet every 
observed fact shows us savage or worn-out races everywhere 
throughout the world deteriorating and dying out, and nowhere 
any savages progressing or, unaided by outside influence, de- 
veloping what we know as civilization. We see everywhere the 
rise and fall of nations, races and civilizations, and their utter 
blotting out; and we refuse to accept that process as a uni- 
versal law through which the destiny of the human race is 
working itself out. In fact, we do not seem to believe that 
the human race has any destiny; it may have beginning and 
an end, but no destiny. 

And so although this modern scientific school began as a 
reaction against the narrowness of theological limitations, both 
of time and greatness, so hampered and hypnotized has our 
thought been by both, that man is of nearly as little universal 

* We might just as well acknowledge, once for all, that in spite of 
its present-day currency in England and America, and its pre-emption 
of the field of " science for the people," the theory of man's physical 
and mental descent from the anthropoids, is not only not proved, but 
is vehemently denied by an equally able and scientific, and withal more 
logical, body of researchers than those who form its supporters. To 
fabricate a missing link in a chain (or even, as with Haeckel, several 
links), whose only authority is acknowledged to be its necessity in 
order to complete the evidence for the theory, and then to declare the 
theory proved because the fabricated link fits perfectly the gap it was 
created for, is equally vicious scientifically whether the fabrication be 
the work of a physicist of renown or a linguistic theorizer. Let it 
simply be agreed, as it now is by all science, that the evolution of form 
is a universal and well evidenced principle, working out through the 
various well established and comprehensible incidents, such as natural 
selection, adaptation to environment, and so on — yet this statement of 
the fact is not an explanation of its cause. And every scientific and 
logical requirement will be equally, and better, met by regarding all 



46 COMMElNTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

account with one as with the other, and we find a seemingly 
ineradicable repugnance to admit that any people had " devel- 
oped " writing before the least possible time ago we can fix it, 
usually this side of the year 1 of the Christian era. And thus 
we have M, Terrien de Lacouperie's " 450 embryo scripts and 
writings " — which another fifty years may show to be nearly 
as many fragments of one or a few great stocks of ancient 
hieroglyphs. Of course it is impossible to derive the American 
races or civilizations from the Chinese, Phoenicians, Hittites, 
or any of the cultures of the other hemisphere, if we limit the 
latter to what we know of their history within the past two 
or three thousand odd years, and American civilization to the 
past fifteen hundred years. The matter is somewhat greater 
than that — just as man is somewhat greater than a fool of 
natural caprice. 

There is one point from which this question of American 

forms, whether physical, linguistic, or of any kind, as coming, or rather 
brought, into being by the force of a consciousness which needs them 
as the vehicles of its expanding activity. That this is absolutely true 
in language, anybody can see. That it is true in every department of 
daily life about us, everybody does see. That it should be equally true 
in biology and physics, would not affect the standing or verity of a 
single observed fact. 

There was, along about the beginning of the Christian era, and for 
some time before and after, a very curious movement, which seemed 
to spread itself over nearly the entire world, east and west. It is told 
of the early Aztecs that " they destroyed the records of their prede- 
cessors, in order to increase their own prestige." It is related that 
writing once existed in Peru, but was entirely wiped out, and the Inca 
records committed to quipus alone. The " burning of the books " un- 
der Tsin Chi Hwangti in B. c. 213 sought to do the same for China. 
The times of Akbar witnessed much of the same in India. And in 
Europe almost nothing was left to tell the tale of the great pre-Christian 
eastern empires and systems of thought; so that from the establish- 
ment of State Christianity under Constantine, and the final settlement 
of the Canon at the Council of Nicaea, an impenetrable veil was drawn 
over the achievements and greatness of the Past, and all connexion 
therewith broken off. It was some time after this that we find the 
heliocentric theory, as well as that of other habitable worlds, denied 
(in Europe), because "it would deprive the Earth of its unique and 
central eminence." Just as we also today are served up with prehistoric 
savage and animal ancestors, to the greater glory of our own present- 
day magnificence. But it really is in sober truth only a question of 
mental perspective which does not affect the facts of history, biology, 
archaeology or language in the least. It is only a question of which 
end of the telescope we look through. 



COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 47 

origins, at least of American place in human society and civil- 
ization, can be studied in its broader lines, even with what 
materials we have. It is that of language in general. All 
these other matters we have touched upon are necessary fac- 
tors in the question of human evolution, and the position of 
America cannot be considered apart from them, and all of 
them. But Language touches both the glyphs directly and also 
all these other things, and is itself of surpassing interest and 
importance as a human study. 

From one point of view Language is man himself, and it 
certainly is civilization. \\^ithout it man is not man, a Self- 
expressing and social being. It is, as von Humboldt laid 
down, not an act but an activity, or energ)^, not a thing done, 
but a doing. It is the constant effort of the conscious self to 
formulate thought. It is the use of the energy of creation, 
of objectivation, a veritable many-colored rainbow bridge be- 
tween the inner or higher man and the outer or lower worlds. 
And it is not only the expression of Man as man, but in its 
varied forms it is the inevitable and living expression of each 
man or body of men at any and every point of time. Itself 
boundless as an ocean, it is in its infinite forms and streams 
and colors and sounds, the faithful and exact exponent both 
of the sources and channels by which it has come, and of the 
banks in which it is held, racial, national or individual. It is 
living or dead, forceful or weak, pure or foul, refreshing or 
flat, healing or poisonous. It Hmits us, but yields to our force. 
Every word or form comes to us with the thought impress 
of every man or nation that has used or molded it before us. 
We must take it as it comes, but we give it something of our- 
selves as we pass it on. If our intellectual and spiritual 
thought is aflame, whether as nation or individual, we may 
purify it, energize it, give it power to form and arrange the 
atoms around it — and we have a new literature, a new and 
beneficent, creative social vehicle of intercourse, mutual under- 
standing, and human unification. Or if our mental or spiritual 
life is stale, and petty, or egoistic, or seeking for enjojTnent 



48 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

only rather than action; if we have nothing in us to give the 
words and forms we use, but only some national force left to 
use and play with them^ we for a while refine, and paint, and 
pettify, and elaborate into meaningless subtleties of form, 
every one of which in turn reacts upon our mental and spir- 
itual life, distracting and enchaining us, until at last the nation 
and its language — die out; for neither can live without the 
other. 

Now it is evident that the criterion of the perfectness of 
any language is not to be found in a comparison of its forms 
or methods with those of any other, but in its fitness as a 
vehicle for the expression of deeper life, of the best and the 
greatest that is in those who use it, and above all in its ability 
to react and stimulate newer and yet greater mental and spir- 
itual activity and expression. The force behind man, demand- 
ing expression through him, and him only, into the human life 
of all, is infinite — of necessity infinite. There is no limit, nor 
ever has been any limit, to what man may bring down into the 
dignifying, broadening and enriching of human life and evolu- 
tion, save in his own ability to comprehend, express, and live it. 
And the brightness and cleanness of the tools whereby he form- 
ulates his thought, as well as the worthiness and fitness of the 
substance and the forms into which he shapes it for others to 
see, are the essentials of his craft. For such is the economy of 
nature, which wastes nothing in reality, that a fit vehicle will 
be taken possession of by its own tenant ; and the unfit left to 
and be taken by those who can use no better. 

Before, then, taking up the great formal classes into which 
language at large is usually divided, it will be necessary to say 
a few words as to the foundations of form itself in language, 
that we may then proceed to consider these classes from the 
standpoint of their inner meaning rather than solely of the 
outer form; and by seeking to understand the mental and 
spiritual equipment and life of those that used them, may per- 
haps in turn be better fitted finally to enter into the genius of 
their written and spoken languages, and to interpret through 
them in the detail more of the ideas which those forms were 



COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ COD^X 49 

both fitted and used to express. Such a method is essential 
for the understanding of any language or culture, but it is 
absolutely necessary in the case of these non-Aryan tongues, 
so great is the distance both of time and thought which separ- 
ates us from them. If we set out to compare the forms by 
which they expressed their thought with those within which we 
develop ours, or approach these cultures and peoples in the 
attitude of alien criticism, study their " interesting ways " 
through a mental lorgnette and impale their dead forms on 
the needles of our collection, we shall not only show ourselves 
less broad in culture than many of them, but we shall simply 
close and lock the doors of discrimination and understanding 
before us. The question is not, How do their forms and ways 
appeal to us? but. How did those forms, and ways, achieve 
their underlying objects, and what was the thought behind 
them? 

Life is action, and without activity whatever powers lie 
within any conscious being are only potential. Activity is the 
bridge between the inner man and the outer world, by which 
he impresses his thought, in forms, on chaos or the atoms 
about him, receiving in return increased knowledge and exper- 
ience of all he touches, and knowledge of himself through the 
results of his own actions; and it is the bridge between man 
and man. For this reason the verb, the word of action, is the 
most important and most developed part of speech. The three 
hypostases of life, as of language, are the self, activity, and 
the world ; and it is for the expression of all the possible varied 
relations between these three, that all the forms of any lan- 
guage come into being. And from the way in which these 
forms are developed, and the relative importance which is 
given to this or that form of thought or activity, the character 
of the people, their grasp of nature, and their own conception 
of themselves and their relation to the world, can be seen.* 

* It is exceedingly interesting to trace the course of criticism since 
the appearance of Wilhelm von Humboldt's great work, Ueber die 
Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf 
diegeistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts (Berlin, 1836). Dr. 
Brinton gave it most unqualified approval; (see especially his mono- 



50 COMMENTARY ON THE) P^REZ COD^X 

Some languages have the strong impress of impersonahty, 
without any loss of virility; others are strongly egotistic and 
self-assertive, with perhaps the braggart's lack of genuine 
strength. Each spoken language that we know has its own 
color and tone, to which our thought must respond, if we 
would know and use it well. To speak good Swedish, for 
instance, requires clear thinking to an exceptional degree. To 
show this, the form " come here," which is the ordinary Eng- 
lish expression, is simply bad grammar in Swedish; the use 
of " come hither" {kom hit, instead of kom h'dr) is imperative. 
We have the " hither " in English, but it has become stilted, 
and the linguistic distinction lost. Compare also the use of fa, 
as a common auxiliary; nor are these exceptions, but, on the 
contrary, characteristic examples. Also to enunciate the lan- 
guage rightly one must hold the back and neck erect and the 
muscles firm. 

graph read before the American Philosophical Society in 1885, and 
printed the same year). Prof. H. Steinthal (Grammatik, Logik und 
Psychologic, 1855) calls the subject of "inner form" the most import- 
ant one in linguistic science, and von Humboldt's treatment of it his 
greatest contribution to that science. And so on. But the work has 
nevertheless received little attention from a large number of writers, 
most of them declaring it " unclear." These two views, when one 
studies the various writers, seem to follow closely upon the stand- 
points from which each approaches the study. Those who study 
language (perhaps one should here say, languages) as a phenornenon, 
a set of external forms, an act, a thing done, get little use out of 
von Humboldt's work. Those who see it as a human " activity," 
an energy, get much. This is quite apparent in one of the clearest and 
ablest linguistic works which has recently appeared, Dr. Adolf Noreen's 
Vdrt Sprak (in 9 vols., still in course of publication, Lund, 1903 and 
later), a work of far wider linguistic value than appears from its title. 
Dr. Noreen, however, dismisses von Humboldt's work, and the sub- 
ject of " inner form," with a few pages, and the results are apparent 
in several interesting points. In the first place, in the course of an 
acute and critical analysis, wherein he shows that the purpose of 
speech is not simply expression of thoughts or ideas, but the com- 
munication to some other person of the knowledge of the ideas so 
held by the speaker, he goes on to say : " the same knowledge of A's 
wishes could be as well communicated by his saying ' I want you to 
come' as by his saying just 'Come.'" This is quite true; but the 
energic effect is quite different. Language is the bridge from man to 
man, and it is also a creative activity of man. Of course Dr. Noreen, 
in a later volume, where he most lucidly analyses the terms ' words,' 
'forms,' and 'concepts,' etc. {ord, morfem, semem, etc.), and corrects 
many errors of definition made by his predecessors, acknowledges the 



COMMEINTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 51 

In some languages the speaker thinks of himself and his 
completed action as inseparable, as a single idea, as the Latin 
edi for I have eaten; in others he thinks of himself subcon- 
sciously as possessing the results of his action, as our / have 
eaten; and in others, as among the Irish peasantry, he separ- 
ates himself and his action entirely, as / am after eating. In 
some grammars, as in Maya, the verbal concept starts with the 
past ; in others, as our own, we live in the present ; in the 
Welsh, the future is the chief tense. The mere choice of shall 
or zvill as the first person future auxiliary denotes a specific 
mental quality. 

Now the expression of all these infinite shades of relation- 
tionship between the self, the activity and the world, is achieved 
in two ways : position or placement — syntax ; and form. 
The customary division of languages is into Monosyllabic, 
Agglutinative, Incorporating, and Inflectional, and this division 
will suit our purpose, though it must be used with care. It is 
held in the ordinary theory that these classes must represent 
successive stages of linguistic perfection, each in turn being 
higher in the scale than the other, they having grown one from 
the other as the race advanced. By the theory the monosylla- 

difference between the two forms ; still his whole admirable work, 
analytical and critical as it is, is devoted to this phase of language as 
a mere phenomenon, a set of forms which serve as a medium of com- 
munication. From this standpoint, we know all there is to know about 
language when we have classified its forms. But from the other, the 
study is ever leading us into the regions and depths of man's con- 
sciousness, his creative activity as it goes out to the world ; and the 
true definition of language, from this position, " can hence only be a 
genetic one." (von Humboldt, Gesammelte Werke, VI, 42) 

It is further not unworthy of note that, except where directly re- 
quired in treating of verbal categories, nearly all of the enormous 
number of illustrations which Dr. Noreen chooses for his points, are 
nouns, names of things, and vary rarely verbal forms, words of action 
and doing. But it is simply a fact that all the potency of language is in 
the verb, and almost all there is of language, in a philosophic sense, 
lies there. The verb is the bridge of communication and action upon 
external things, just as is language itself, going out of man. And it 
is also noteworthy that the recognition of this position of the verb, 
together with these other matters of which we are speaking, seems 
nearer at hand and clearer to those students who are led beyond Aryan 
languages to the study of American and Asiatic, especially Central and 
Northern Asiatic. For instance, G. v. d. Gabelentz, Die Sprachwissen- 
schaft, and other works. 



52 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

bic is lower than the agglutinative, and inherently less useful. 
But the theory does not work out in practical application to 
the facts we have to deal with, for while we cannot find still 
left in the world any agglutinative languages representative 
of sufficient culture to bring into our present consideration, 
we do find a monosyllabic in the highest rank, and meeting 
the highest cultural requirements. In short, the latter may be 
theoretically the inferior tool, but the genius of thought be- 
hind is greater than the form. One man can draw a master- 
piece with a burnt stick, another only paint a daub with all 
the brushes made. Once again we must not judge by our pre- 
conceived preferences of form. 

Omitting therefore the modern remnants of agglutinating 
languages, outside of America, as affording us no literary ma- 
terial of value for our study, we shall find at once drawn across 
all the other great classes a single broad line of division, be- 
tween the ideographic and the literal — the same as already 
mentioned. And the moment we draw this line as an exponent 
of the mental and spiritual thought-life of the different peo- 
ples, we shall find it not only molding their language forms, 
both written and spoken, but manifest as well in their art, 
philosophy, and even their social polity. And of course we 
must be fair in our comparisons, and not set a Chinese coolie 
in the concrete against an English statesman, nor any concrete 
example of another kind of culture in its decay with the 
highest bloom to which we believe our own type to be able 
to carry us. 

It would be absurd to say that the ratiocinative, literal mind 
is higher than the ideal. One man sees directly the meaning 
of the things, the events and situations before him; another 
reasons it all out. And contrary to many of our current be- 
liefs, the former is often the man of action ; he sees at a flash 
to the heart of the matter, and gets things done. His thought, 
his activity, is vivid ; and his words are likely to be so as well. 
The idealist, if he be broadminded, and not merely sentimental, 
is indeed likely to be the practical man. And the type of mind 
that is made manifest to us by these great non-Aryan Ian- 



COMMENTARY ON THK PE;RE;z CODEIX 53 

guages and their forms, is the former. Of course idealism in 
its decadence becomes negative, inactive, self-consuming and 
no longer creative. But in its bloom the direct vision may 
be even more active, more practical, than are the reasoned 
processes. 

Much ink and paper has been spent over the question whe- 
ther the Chinese hieroglyphs are ideograms or phonograms, 
whether the character ZXT, for instance, conveys to those 
using it primarily the -^X idea of Heaven, or the spoken 
word T'ien. It is necessarily both, in a sense; it would not 
be written language otherwise. And it is equally true that the 
letter-combination Heaven is in a way as much to us a picture 
of the idea as of the sound; but the difference of procedure 
is radical. The glyph is related to the idea directly, the spelled 
word only through the formal combination of symbols for 
single vocal speech-elements, meaningless when separate. The 
relation of spoken sound to glyph is wholly adventitious ; the 
relation of the idea to the spelled word is equally adventitious. 
The ascent, if we so call it, of written speech from the ideo- 
graphic to the alphabetic, is the descent of the thought further 
into material forms.* And while it may be (and in the course 
of universal evolution rightly so) necessary for our thought 
to descend into the bondage of matter and form, for its know- 

_ * It was not until after this paper was already in type that my atten- 
tion was directed to the complete agreement of this and the succeeding 
sentences with the following passage in The Secret Doctrine, by H. P. 
Blavatsky, London, 1888, vol. II, page 199. After saying that some of 
the Atlantean races spoke the agglutinative languages, the passage con- 
tinues : " While the ' cream ' of the Fourth Race gravitated more and 
more toward the apex of physical and intellectual evolution, thus leav- 
ing as an heirloom to the nascent Fifth (the Aryan) Race the inflec- 
tional, highly developed languages, the agglutinative decayed and re- 
rnained as a fragmentary fossil idiom, scattered now, and nearly 
limited to the aboriginal tribes of America." Note the words I have 
italicized, marking the evolution of the " inflectional " languages as an 
attendant phenomenon on physico-intellectual evolution, compare the 
passage with von Humboldt's thesis, already quoted, that the incorpor- 
ative quality denotes an exaltation of the imaginative over the ratio- 
cinative processes of mind in its users, and further with the surviving 
genius of Chinese, the type of monosyllabic languages, and the agree- 
ment is evident. Von Humboldt, however, did not carry out so fully 
the archaeological results, for which indeed the materials were in his 
day still lacking. See also other passages in The Secret Doctrine. 



54 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

ledge and experience, and for the development of matter and 
form into fitter vehicles of thought, nevertheless the process is 
a binding and for a time an enchaining one, and the thought 
is, for a time at least, likely to be lost in the confusion of 
forms. 

Thus we may lay down as our fundamental proposition 
that a hieroglyphic form of writing is better fitted to, and 
must properly, in the period of its natural development, accom- 
pany the imaginative processes of mind. Or, since imagination 
to our literal thought implies in some degree the fanciful 
(though wrongly so in essence), we might perhaps better say 
that that form of writing is the fit attendant and exponent of 
those functions of mind which cognize the inner meanings of 
the facts of life directly, rather than those which study them 
through the correlation of their phenomena. And also, that 
the development by any people of an alphabetic out of a hiero- 
glyphic system, does not imply a greater advance in linguistic 
perfection on their part, but indicates a corresponding mental 
and inner change of attitude towards ideas and things, and a 
different conception of the self as related to them all. 

It is not at all necessary to assume that the knowledge 
gained by one method is deeper or more exact than the other. 
True science may exist as fully under one set of circumstances 
as the other. If we will take the type of the so-called most 
primitive form, the monosyllabic — the Chinese, we shall find 
all this evidenced in the clearest manner. To note but one 
illustration, a study of the scientific and philosophical ideas 
involved in and conveyed by the word k'ung, for Space, ether, 
the fundamental substratum of sound or vibration, as well as 
the "interetheric" central point of balance and power, will dis- 
close an understanding that has nothing to fear from modern 
comparisons. 

And the very fact that Chinese has had to depend on place- 
ment of its monosyllables to express all the relations for which 
speech is called upon, instead of relying on changes of form, 
seems to have, and indeed has so stimulated the development 
of pure linguistic power that the language is actually as per- 



COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 55 

feet and clear a medium of cultured and learned intercourse, 
as is the Sanskrit, the supreme type of the so-called most de- 
veloped form, the inflectional. And by reason of its possession 
of the ideographic element it has a vividness which the San- 
skrit has not. No language can be a highly developed one 
which does not provide in some way for the expression of all 
possible needed relations between the three fundamental pos- 
tulates of life and activity — the self, the action and the 
world ; and Chinese does this in spite of its monosyllabic struc- 
ture by the development of its syntax of position. And it 
should be remembered further that Chinese syntax, in strict 
correspondence to the genius of the language, is not the same 
formal thing that syntax is with, our inflectional tongues, but 
includes, or rather is primarily based on the harmonic adjust- 
ment of the inherent basic ideas of or within the words. The 
Chinese monosyllables are then not the naked separate things 
they are in the dictionary, but the whole phrase or sentence 
is on the contrary as much a unit as one of ours; and often 
more so. 

This integral unity of the whole sentence or expression, 
dominated by a perspective of ideas rather than of forms, 
which is achieved in Chinese by the elaboration of placement, 
is also characteristic of the structure of the languages of the 
American continent; but, these languages being polysyllabic, 
the vividness and unity are attained by a method described as 
Incorporation, whereby the accessories of relation are so in- 
cluded in or attached to the leading word that the whole ex- 
pression assumes the form and sound of a single word. And 
a similar process takes place with the various elements of 
a compound sentence. So that although this one of the divis- 
ions of language approaches very closely to the Inflectional in 
its external forms, it yet has held to the vividness and essential 
characteristics of the ideographic method. And it is a point 
of the utmost importance for the decipherment of the Maya 
glyphs, to note as has been stated before, that their syntax of 
combination must follow that of the spoken language, which 
we know. 



56 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

There is one broad line of division marking all the lan- 
guages and civilizations of the world — the line between the 
ideographic and the literal; it marks the use of hieroglyphic 
or of alphabetic writing, and it denotes a culture so widely 
different from ours, modes of thought so distinct, views of life 
and man's relation to it one might almost say so opposite to 
ours, as to point unmistakably to a most distant past, and a 
former world-culture probably as wide-spread in its day as is 
now ours — or more so. And it is one of the strangest and 
most remarkable of the phenomena we are considering, that 
the two divisions have overlapped each other in time to such 
a degree that whereas we have in Sanskrit, the most perfect 
type of Aryan, or inflectional languages, the oldest of them 
all; on the other hand we have in Chinese an equally perfect 
linguistic medium of the other type, kept alive into our own 
times. 

When we consider the development and status of the Amer- 
ican civilizations which have been revealed to us, and especially 
when we have once opened our minds to the possibility that 
world-civilizations different in their time from ours in ours, 
may for all we know have existed and been blotted out ages 
ago, leaving linguistic traces, and perhaps perpetuating cultural 
remnants in a few parts of the earth, it is impossible not to 
recognize the breadth of the problem we are considering. All 
over the American continent at the time of the Discovery we 
see cultures and systems whose time had come. Back of most 
of the North and South American tribes we find the remains 
of mighty and utterly extinct civilizations — only their dim 
memory left. In the centers of higher culture from Mexico 
to Peru we see the ancient civilization brought further down 
to our own times ; but there also, in process, all the incidents 
of break-up and an expiring greatness. Internecine strife, 
invasion from outside, changes of center, are all going on, and 
all marked by a steady decrease in everything that means civ- 
ilization. Of the ancient mathematical and astronomical know- 
ledge a corner of which is revealed to us by the Maya glyph 
remains, only a distorted fragment appears in the Mexican, 



COMMENTARY ON TH^ PE;rEZ COD^X 57 

where also hieroglyphs have yielded to a cruder rebus-writing. 
The stately and incomparable compositions and architecture 
of Palenque, Copan and Quirigua have yielded to the ball 
courts and local strifes of Chichen Itza — all this following the 
very course of changing historical succession preserved in the 
Chronicles. The later the date, the lower in every case the 
culture ; this is impossible not to recognize, nor have we traces 
of any different course of events. Of course we see the rise 
of the Aztec nation, a small cycle, but like the Gothic upon 
the Roman, it comes at the end of the general American 
break-up — an incursion of barbarians settling on and pre- 
serving for us fragments of the culture that preceded them, 
just as has happened over and over again all over the world. 
And the same with the Incas in Peru. And yet even the Mex- 
ican culture demands our high respect, comparing favorably 
with European of the same period. Indeed it was actually far 
ahead of the latter in matters of education and many points 
of polity. 

But in spite of its seeming greatness, its heart and energy 
were gone, just as with Peru, and both yielded to what on the 
face seems a miracle, but was only the expression of that 
force which was preparing the American continent for a new 
race and civilization, still now only in its beginnings. The 
Mayan empire had already broken up. And even as we write, 
the archaeological history of the other hemisphere is being 
repeated here ; on the heels of Manabi comes the Chimu Val- 
ley, and soon it will be with America as with Egypt — one 
will not be able to print an up-to-date work on its early his- 
tory, for new discoveries will carry it back further, and to 
greater scope, before the previous ones can be edited and 
gotten to press. Compare the few pages of earliest Egypt in 
Sharpe's history, with Flinders Petrie's work of a decade or 
so ago, and that with the situation today. 

It is a simple fact that decipherment and publication all 
over the world can no longer keep pace with discovery; and 
the time has come for archaeology to begin to survey these 
remnants, engineering works that would tax any modern na- 



58 COMMENTARY ON THE) P^REZ COD^X 

tion with all our appliances, vast ruined cities, one above the 
other, innumerable languages and writings, the traces of peo- 
ples whose very names are lost to history — as a whole, and 
to ask itself how long it must have taken for all these works 
to be accomplished, let alone for the birth and decay of the 
civilizations that supported them, and gave environment for 
the development of such technical skill as could finish the enor- 
mous bulk of the Great Pyramid with an accuracy beyond the 
fineness of our best instruments to measure. For not only 
mere bulk is to be considered — though there is enough of that 
scattered over the earth to keep all the possible available 
craftsmen of the world a wholly incommensurate time achiev- 
ing them, but the ability to conceive and carry out such works. 
What sort of people leveled Monte Alban for its crown of 
pyramids, dreamed and executed the stucco modelings of 
Palenque, built the temple of Boro Budur in Java, cut the 
Bamian statues of the Hindii Kush, and so on, and so on, for 
page after page? If they had such appliances as we have, 
they must be ranked at least in our class for having them ; if 
they did them without our great engines, what sort of men 
were they? And if they could do these things without our 
appliances, is it not a fair inference that they could easily 
have made the tools, or others better perhaps? 

One fact is becoming more prominent with every advance 
of archaeology over the world, a fact of the greatest linguistic 
interest, namely that ancient civilizations and empires, as a 
whole, lasted longer than ours of today. Consider how many 
different and successive empires Europe has had in the last 
20CK) odd years, our history; and how long each of our cul- 
tures has lasted. All of them put together would go into one 
of these older periods, and have plenty to spare. Passing 
over what may be the real meaning and bearing of this fact 
on the problem of universal history and human evolution, 
and the position of our race today, the linguistic considera- 
tions which follow are most interesting. 

If the fundamental thesis of language as a human activity 
is its direct correspondence to and expression of all the inner 



COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 59 

motives and forces of the users, we have here a key to the 
survival to our day, an unknown period past its own time, of 
the Chinese type. 

Of the development, modification and decay of languages 
we have ample material in our own times for study, the periods 
over which the modifying forces operate being an equal meas- 
ure of the periods of national activity and change. And, 
what is perhaps not always sufficiently recognized, we have an 
elaboration of the formal elements going on under very dif- 
ferent impulses, at different periods of the life of the language. 
The time has come in the history of a people for it to play a 
greater part on the world's stage: some danger has threatened 
the national life and aroused its energies, or other causes have 
worked to quicken the mental and spiritual life; an Eliza- 
bethan era is ushered in, frequently by a forerunner, a Chau- 
cer, and the language responds, its forms develop and are 
perfected. Or else some fitting or amalgamating force comes 
in from outside, the life of the people is widened, new blood 
enters in every sense, and the forms of the language respond. 
Or perhaps, when they may seem to have come to the tether 
end of things, and men's minds turn back to older, even pre- 
historic times, seeds long buried and forgotten in the nature 
spring up, and a true national Renaissance follows. In these 
cases the change and elaboration of forms is a symptom of 
new life; the vehicle is being molded and expanded to fit 
the growing thought. 

But it is not always so. There comes a time when the 
outgoing force, the activity of life, wanes and, after a greater 
or less period of settled conditions, a period of proper use and 
government of the regions occupied, a change sets in. And 
then we may have again the wholly deceptive phenomenon of 
linguistic amplification; but it is the false activity of decay. 
The energy has turned in and begun to feed upon itself. The 
national impulse has changed from achievement to gratifica- 
tion, more and more sources are drawn upon to minister to 
its enjoyment, and that enjoyment becomes an art; forms of 
every kind are subtly refined in its service, and linguistic forms 



60 COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 

with them. And this is then the very period when all these 
material, formal elements are pointed to with pride as the 
evidence of culture and progress. The thought-life of the 
nation has lost itself in the conflict and confusion, in the dis- 
tractions of the forms into which it has molded the matter 
its creative force had entered. 

We have thus in nations and languages, as in individuals, 
the phenomena of birth, growth, use, and a quick or a slow 
death, all marked by various degrees and signs of health or 
disease, and every one at root a moral. question. These are 
the facts of general average, quite corresponding to those 
that form the bases for life insurance tables. But, as with 
these latter, not only are there variations for inheritance, 
class, locality, and so on, but there are here and there cases 
of out and out exception — which from all we can see must 
be assigned to some external force in operation on the indiv- 
idual. We call them " freak " occurrences, only because we 
cannot see the wider law or causes at work. When we meet 
them in sufficient numbers, we make new tables to cover them 
as far as we can, again in general only. Other causes still 
elude us, though they must have a fountain somewhere. 

We have, as great exceptions to our general averages, 
two opposite phenomena. One is the sudden inexplicable and 
dazzling rise on the world's stage of a totally insignificant 
people, the other the seeming arrest for long periods of time 
of the normal processes of even incipient decay. And touch- 
ing the latter point, it is strange indeed that in two such widely 
diflferent cultures as those of Iceland and China we should 
find the same law apparently at work; the periods are vastly 
unlike in actual, but not so in relative duration. We have no 
way of properly placing the maintenance of Icelandic and 
Chinese as they have been other than by simply laying down 
the existence of what we may call a Law of Retardation, 
whose ultimate causes we cannot fathom or classify, but which 
will stand as an opposite phase of the Law of Stimulation, 
which is more frequent in operation, but is equally unex- 
plained. 



COMMENTARY ON THE PEREZ CODEX 61 

If we will now regard the languages and cultures of the 
world, we will find all the phases of linguistic and cultural 
activity, operative with about the same degree of rapidity, all 
over both hemispheres, save in places protected by our Law 
of Retardation. We will find the rate of changes and succes- 
sions generally far less rapid the farther back in time we go; 
and finally we will find a special and marked acceleration on 
both sides of the Atlantic during the last thousand years, all 
incident to the placing of a new race in America. 

So for the facts as we find them. They point to the des- 
cent of past American civilizations from a past period of 
continental, or far more probably, of world-wide extent. For 
who can imagine that people great enough to build as these 
did, should not also have navigated? Why should we assume 
in the face of other experiences, that Maya dates and calcul- 
ations mean nothing, except on the general principle that they 
did not know as much as we do, and were doubtless liars? 
Bailly proved over a hundred years ago that Hindu exact 
astronomical observations must date back at least 5000 years, 
and that they were in possession of minutely accurate tables * 
long before Europe was. And the rotundity of the earth was 
certainly known both to them and the other great nations of 
antiquity. 

Archaeology is today pushing back the dates of fixed and 
acknowledged history almost to the date given by the Egyp- 
tians to Solon for the submersion of the great Atlantean is- 
land; and if we can but read the Maya glyphs, and open that 
door, another twenty years from now may show us beyond all 
possible dispute evidences in every part of the earth belt of 
a contemporaneous culture, different from and precedent to 
the Aryan. 

I have so far in this monograph, based upon and having to 
do as it has with the Maya glyphs, their interpretation and 
their place in the linguistic field, limited myself to an analysis 
and consideration of the facts presented to us by those linguis- 

* Traits de VAstronomie Indienne et Orientale, Disc. Prel. et seq. 



62 COMMEJNTARY ON THE P^RtZ CODEJX 

tic and cultural data we have actually before us. But there is 
one further problem which is suggested by it all. It is this: 
Where, in point of time and place, is the change in the world's 
linguistic and cultural life from ideographic to, literal to be 
sought for, and what is its rationale? Separated from us by 
such an enormous period of time as it is, I still cannot believe 
that some view of it cannot be had. There are various facts 
of Old World history and language, partly of prehistoric 
Europe, partly of Asia, an analysis of which would extend 
this paper too far into other fields ; but apart entirely from 
the question of myths or traditions, there are various actual 
observed phenomena both of language and writing, especially 
in Central Asia, which do not fit into any of the ordinary 
theories, and which do suggest this, as a simple linguistic 
conclusion. In point of locality, at least, the conclusion agrees 
with the usual " Aryan home " theory ; but as far as concerns 
this latter it must be remembered that however fully it demon- 
strates the unity of the Aryan race, beyond that fact all ques- 
tions of dates and even of the state of civilization at the time, 
are not matters of history as yet for us, but only of theory — 
as to which our present "perspective" may be once more as 
faulty as it has often been heretofore.* 

* The suggestion above is linguistic, and in that phase is given as 
a corollary to the foregoing discussion ; but, as stated, it is at the same 
time in accord with the "Aryan" theory in its essentials (though not 
in its hypothetical and ultra-historical speculations), and it also finds 
confirmation by various passages in The Secret JDoctrine, by li.^ P. 
Blavatsky, as already quoted. " The traces of an immense civilization, 
even in Central Asia, are still to be found. This civilization is unde- 
niably prehistoric. . . . The Eastern and Central portions of those 
regions — the Nan-Shan and the Altyn-Tagh — were once upon a time 
covered with cities that could well vie with Babylon. A whole geologi- 
cal period has swept over the land, since those cities breathed their 
last, as the mounds of shifting sand, and the sterile and now dead 
soil of the immense central plains of the basin of Tarim testify. 
... In the oasis of Cherchen some 300 human beings represent the 
relics of about a hundred extinct nations and races — the very names 
of which are now unknown to our ethnologists." (Vol. I, page xxxii 
et seg.) See also Col. Prjevalsky's Travels. Why should it not be so? 
The above was written in 1888, but the evidences are growing every 
day, and it will be against all archaeological precedent if far-reaching 
results do not follow from Dr. Stein's small find, and from Capt. 
d'Ollone's recent researches among the Lolos, and the securing by 



COMMENTARY ON THE) PDREJZ CODEJX 63 

I believe that this center of transition lay somewhere in 
Central Asia, to the north of the great Himalayan range. 
That this region was a sort of alembic, a melting-pot (as 
America is today) for various peoples of an ancient world- 
wide culture, as broad at least in its scope as the term Aryan 
is today. That this culture displayed the ideographic traits 
we have discussed, and that it has left more or less definite 
traces at different places in the world. That it covered the 
two Americas, in whatever continental form they may then 
have existed, leaving us there " les debris echappes a un nau- 
frage commun." That coincident with a new and universal 
world-epoch, as wide in its cultural scope as the difference 
between the ideographic and literal, there was finally formed 
a totally new vehicle for the use of human thought, the in- 
flectional, literal, alphabetic. That this vehicle was perfected 
into some great speech, the direct ancestor of Sanskrit, into 
the forms of which were concentrated all the old power of the 
ancient hieroglyphs and their underlying concepts. For San- 
skrit, while the oldest is also the mightiest of Aryan gram- 
mars; and no one who has studied its forms, or heard its 
speech from educated native mouths, can call it anything but 
concentrated spiritual power. That the force which went on 
the one hand into the Sanskrit forms, was on the other per- 
petuated on into the special genius of Chinese, in which, as we 
know it, we have a retarded survival, not of course of outer 
form so much as of method and essence. And in Tibetan, 
in spite of all that is said to the contrary, I suspect that we 
have a derivative, not from either Chinese or Sanskrit as we 
know them, but by a medial line from a common point.* Of 

him, as we are informed, of the long-sought knowledge of their 
hieroglyphic system. 

* The study of Tibetan has so far been approached almost exclusively 
from the south, that is by those already familiar with Sanskrit and 
Pali. To this fact, as well as to the overwhelming influence exercised 
on literary Tibetan by the Buddhist propaganda, is due the difficulty 
one meets in any study of its origins. The traces, however, do never- 
theless exist. Some interesting facts concerning both Chinese and 
Tibetan, which seem to be entirely omitted in such later standard 
works as those of Summers, Wade, and Giles, are to be found in the 
almost forgotten Chinese Grammar of Dr. Marshman, Serampore, 1814. 



64 COMMENTARY ON THt PEREZ CODEX 

course the time for such changes must have been enormous; 
but whatever it was, it was no greater in its realm as time, 
than were the mental differences in theirs. And they both 
are equally human data. 

Certain other facts point to the American or Atlantic 
source and center of this ancient epoch. They are briefly that 
all around the Mediterranean basin we find traces of a van- 
ished culture, unknown to our history, and living only in tra- 
dition and some archaeological remains. And of this culture 
various investigators, each approaching it from his particular 
favorite locality, have constructed for us as many different 
" Empires," by theories each supported by various details of 
analogies. One calls them Tartars, another Hittites, another 
Pelasgians, and so on. And all of them, in each of the theo- 
ries, have as a fact a great many unexplained characteristics, 
different from those of our historical nations. Some of these 
characteristics, most markedly the Basque, but also not a few 
at greater distance, have definite American similarities. It 
might not be a far guess that these fragments represent an 
eastward movement, which later in the history of the Aryan 
development met and was pushed back westward again by the 
fully formed and dominant Aryan race from its Central Asian 
center. This is the future province of Archaeology. 

And I am convinced that the widest door there is to be 
opened to this past of the human race, is that of the Maya 
glyphs. The narrow limitations of our mental horizon as to 
the greatness and dignity of man, of his past, and of human 
evolution, were set back widely by Egypt and what she has 
had to show, and again by the Sanskrit; but the walls are 
still there, and advances, however rapid, are but gradual. 
With the reading of America I believe the walls themselves 
will fall, and a new conception of past history will come. 



LEAp'lL 



Commentary upon the Maya-Tzental 

Perez Codex 



With a Concludmg Note upon the 
Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs 



BY 



William E. Gates 

Professor in School of Antiquity, International Theosophical 
Headquarters, Point Loma, California 



Pomt Loma, California 
1910 



^^J? 



-.-^ 



